During the last weekend of October, both my daughter and I read the 10/31/2011 issue of Time magazine. She made several comments on some of the articles there.

On this article “I Owe U: Student debt is on track to top $1 trillion this year. What happens when diplomas stop opening doors?,” the author lists many sad cases in which students incur tremendous amount of debts, yet upon graduation, unable to find a job or well-paid one to meet its debt obligations.

“OMG, how could one borrow nearly $170, 000 to study documentary filmmaking? You can’t even find a job with that major. How can you pay off your debts if you don’t have a job?” my daughter commented. The sad part is we have too many unfortunate cases like this.

While I applaud for those who chase their dreams and follow their passions, regardless of the cost, I lament the hard consequence of this impractical approach to life. I believe they are much better off chasing something practical if they cannot excel by a giant step in their dream yet not-marketable field. After all, one needs food and shelter and a decent human existence before anything else.

It makes absolutely no sense to toil beyond age 60 and reaching 70 only to find oneself drop sick or even worse drop dead. I am sure in case like this the only beneficiary is U.S. government who does not have to waste a penny on your benefit. What a bless!

Against the advice given by the article, I believe the best strategy is to retire as early as possible, without having to stress out and burn away your life for that meager 30%.

Here’s a simple math: on the one side of equation is stay on till full retirement age + a high probability of poor health with a huge medical bills + 30% retirement benefit; on the other side is early retirement + time to take care of your body with a small medical bill – 30% retirement benefit. See how little that 30% counts?

When you have more time to take care of your dear body, you can have a better chance of living up to 100 and going strong from there. Plus, you can use a small percent of your early retirement benefit to invest and make more money. If your return is greater than 30%, hey, you beat Uncle Sam more than once, while having a good time!

All this is made possible by your total savings. If you are short on savings, too bad you have no choice but to toil till you drop. How dreadful to be poor!

On 9/9/2011, while I was on a teleconference, I saw an article “5 Crucial Questions for Retirees.” The word crucial caught my attention more than anything else, because I want to make sure I have done the right thing all the way. Well, too late if I have not.

The first crucial issue is the time of retirement. The article advices people to stay on their positions till full retirement age, 67 or 70, whichever the government defines, instead of the earliest possible age, that is 62. The argument goes like this. If you start getting social security benefit at the earliest possible age, you only receive 70% of what you would get monthly if you were to stay till full retirement age. You will suffer a “permanent reduction” of your monthly social security benefit for the so-called early retirement.

The argument makes sense if you could live long enough to enjoy the full benefit. This is the key, which, sadly to say, no one can guarantee. When I look at our chemotherapy infusion room, with people in their 60s and 70s and their quality of life, I have no doubt that they would rather retire early and be able to enjoy what little life has left for them, however reduced is their benefit.
To be continued…

The economic mess that the U.S. is enjoying now originated from (1) over consuming, under production, either in housing bubbles and credit card abuse, at individual and national level, like going to war with borrowed money; (2) Negative saving, that is deficit, again on both levels.

China is doing the opposite: (1) Under consumption, over production; (2) Over saving. Hence, China lends the surplus to the US so that US can keep importing from China, which will perpetuate the consumption in the U.S. and the running of factories in China.

Sometimes, I see China as hard-working parents who toil themselves to generate value and save them for their children (the dear Americans), while the US behaves like spoiled children who demand high-level consumption even running on empty purse. We would expect the US, with a mountain of debts, to save more and spend less and China does the opposite. It is not likely to happen this way, though. The children must be spoiled because of their dollar dominance in the world. Something will happen eventually. Let’s wait and see.

Last Friday, 8/12, while I was reading “U.S. Debt Reaches 100 Percent of Country’s GDP” from fox news, I received an internal email on selling “cheap” Worlds of Fun ticket –
Adult $35
Junior (under 48 inches) $24
Season ticket holder wanting the meal only $13.02
With the country’s debt exceeding the total GDP, that’s the fun that most people have to forgo now.

It is very hard to become sanguine when we vision a few years down the road. The US economy is very much consumer driven, consisting of consumption by US government and ordinary citizens. Now, with Republicans calling for government spending cut and consumers increasingly squirreling away their meager savings for lack of confidence, we are seeing less and less spending instead of the other direction as people have expected?

Now talk about increasing productivity and revenue, a sheer empty talk. With the majority of manufacture jobs moving overseas and the lack of the required skills for the emerging technology market, where do productivity come from? No job, no income.

To be honest, forgoing the Worlds of Fun is a small sacrifice compared to the fact that many people will have to face the shrinking of their retirement pension and health care service. Keep in mind the government always stands by the side the rich and powerful while the poor and the powerless can never escape bearing the brunt of economic woes.

Continued from previous posting on this topic

16. Not reading the fine print.
17. Mismanaging your flexible spending account.
18. Being an inflexible traveler.
19. Sticking with the same service plans and the same service providers year after year.
20. Making impulse purchases, when on second thought you don’t really need or you can get it cheaper elsewhere.
21. Dining out frequently.
22. Trying to time the stock market. In trying to buy low and sell high, many people actually do the opposite. Instead, employ the simple strategy of “dollar-cost-averaging.” By investing a fixed dollar amount at regular intervals, you smooth out the ups and downs of the market over time. If you take out the emotion and guesswork, investing can become less stressful, less wasteful and more successful.

23. Buying insurance you don’t need, e.g liability for an old car.
24. Buying new instead of used. Cars lose 20% of their value the moment they’re driven off the lot and 65% in the first five years.
25. Procrastinating. Time is an asset money can’t buy. Start investing for retirement as soon as possible. For instance, if a 40-year-old saves $300 a month with an 8% return per year, he’ll have $287,000 by age 65. If he had started saving 15 years earlier at age 25, he’d have more than $1 million.

P.S. my son called yesterday morning. He sounded rather sleepy, not fully awaken. I was concerned, as he seldom called this early, “What is the matter, son?” He said, “Happy Mother’s Day, mom.” On occasions like this, both of my children know not to upset me by squandering unnecessarily on my behalf. Indeed, a call phone like this will make my day.

We are living through the times when children frequently hear about the hardships related to one of the worst economic downturns in the nation’s history. On the same line, I often read articles teaching people how to stretch their limited resource to last longer. Here’s one of them which I read on 3/2/2011, “25 Ways to Waste Your Money” by Erin Burt, that is, how to avoid the following behavior.

1. Carrying a balance on your credit cards. Debt is a shackle that holds you back.
2. Overspending on gas and oil for your car.
3. Keeping unhealthy habits like smoking and indoor tanning.
4. Using a cell phone that doesn’t fit. Your phone is not a status symbol. It is a way to communicate.
5. Buying brand-name instead of generic.

6. Keeping your mouth shut. By simply asking, you may be able to snag a lower rate on your credit card.
7. Buying beverages one at a time instead of a box of 12 or 24.
8. Paying for something you can get for free, like using library.
9. Stashing your money with Uncle Sam rather than in an interest-earning account.
10. Being disorganized. e.g. Lost bills and receipts, forgotten tax deductions, and clueless spending.

11. Letting a large quantity of your money wallow in a low-interest account.
12. Paying late fees and missing deadlines.
13. Paying ATM fees. Expect to throw away nearly $4 every time you use an ATM that isn’t in your bank’s network.
14. Shopping at the grocery store without a calculator.
15. Paying for things you don’t use and you can get it free from the Internet, like cable TV.

Continued…

While digging out old stuffs, I found some old rental agreements, which reminds me of what I once planned to do but never actually did it.

I kept all the old rental agreement thinking someday I would buy some apartment complex nearby a university and lease them to college students. I would use their rental fees to pay for the mortgage. I would need to learn how to create leasing agreement for my tenants. I started harboring this idea ever since I took accounting classes in 1993, back in Ohio.

One of them is from Dolley Madison Apartments in McLean, Virginia on 1/25/1997, 2-bedroom apartment monthly rent for $930. We lived there between 1/1997 and 5/1998.

The other from Corinth apartment in Prairie Village, Kansas, 2-bedroom for $603. We stayed there between 5/1998 an 7/1999. Another one from Jamestown townhouse, in Fort Wayne, Indiana back in 1994. We left Indiana for Virginia in January 1997 when my daughter was two months shy of two years old.

Well, these documents at least serve to witness a dream or a plan that I once had but never materialize. I don’t know exactly what stopped me from carrying out my plan, but I know my brain does not work well when it comes to accounting.

On 10/13/2010, I had a monitor from Michigan. She is so different from the mainstream culture in her spending habit. First of all, she said she always bought things from Wal-Mart or wherever is cheaper. “I never spent more than $25 on a piece of clothing,” she declared proudly.

The loveliest part is her strong feeling against buying any designer stuff. She lampooned those who chased designer clothes or designer bags. “I am not like those suckers who work their butts off to spend $700 on a designer bag.” She really sees through it all when she said, “Those designers can live in their majestic mansions and drive their limousines because of all these stupid suckers [who are] willing to dump in their hard-earned money for these designer stuffs. Those designers suck every hard-earned penny out of those suckers so that they have everything they want.”

Nothing is more true than this. Once the smart ones set the fashion, the opposite ones follow to the letter. That is how the rich get rich and the poor stay this way forever. Too bad there are too many people who fall for this schema. That is how the social order is well maintained.

On 8/19/2010, I read an article by Phil Taylor, “15 Things You Shouldn’t Be Paying For.”

The recession seemed to have changed some people’s spending behavior. When people are running low, they try to get to places with less gas. I hope people can keep up the thrifty habits even after economy picks up. Here is the list of these 15 things.

1) Basic Computer Software; there are so many free downloads
2) Your Credit Report; you can always get a copy during a free trial period.
3) Cell Phone, absolutely. You don’t really need to keep up with the new products.
4) Books, of course — that’s why we have libraries. And no more books to crowd your room.
5) Water. It is also good for the environment when we consume less bottled water.
6) Credit Card. Why pay an annual fee for a credit card when there are plenty of free ones?
7) Debt Reduction Help. This is the last thing you should pay for, when you don’t have money to pay your debt. But I do know someone who hires an agent to manage all her bills.
Basic Tax Preparation. Do it yourself unless you have half a million to work on. I know some people are too hopelessly lazy to do it themselves.
9) News. Either go online and read or go to your local library or even bookstore. It is simply too old fashioned to buy news now.
10) Budgeting Tools; download free tools from the internet.
11) Pets. There are many lovely pets in animal shelters. You might have done a good deed by providing a home for one of them.
12) Shipping; look for free shipping deals.
13) Checking Account. Why pay for this when many banks offer a free checking account?
14) DVD Rentals. You can watch anything from the internet or get free rentals from insideredbox.com
15) Exercise. Nothing is more true than this. You can exercise anytime anywhere, with free air and free sunshine.

Actually, there are a lot more things that people don’t need to buy, especially during back-to-school days. The weekend before school started, I saw many parents shopping for school supplies with a list from the school. What happened to the old school bag and supplies that they used last year? Why do people have to get a completely new set of school supplies every year?

On 8/20/2010, I went through a patient’s chart and met such a case — a stage IV breast cancer patient, in her 40s. When she was first diagnosed, she was already in this late stage. She felt a mass in her breast long before that, but since she did not have medical insurance, she decided not to see a doctor. When finally she had a chance for a free physical checkup, she related the mass on her breast to the doctor, who immediately asked her to do a biopsy, a thorough workout, then surgery. The workout reveals the cancer has metastasized to liver and brain.

I couldn’t stop thinking and feeling sad long after I closed her chart. I don’t know exactly what went through her head when she waited till the tumor became a palpable mass. Didn’t she understand that mass could kill her? Maybe she didn’t.

That evening I shared it with my daughter, “It is so dreadful to be this poor and ignorant. That’s why people of lower social status have both high morbidity and mortality rate. They cannot afford to seek medical help when they should and they don’t know the risk of delay.”

On 10/8/2010, there is another article on thrifty living, “6 Habits That Will Make You Broke” by Claire Bradley.

I feel so unpatriotic when I constantly talk about saving, the opposite of spending and boosting up our economy. After all, consumer spending makes up nearly 70% of the nation’s GDP. If everybody were as thrifty as they should, we would never see the rebounding of our economy.

Still, you would not want to see this happen to you — “It’s still a week until payday, but your checking account is almost empty already. Where did all your money go?”

The money has been drained away by some of the following bad habits. Below is from Bradley’s article.

1. Window Shopping or internet goods browsing. To be sure, those window showcases are not without purpose.

2. Carrying Lots of Cash You know that paying with plastic is bad, but carrying lots of cash can be just as bad a habit. Avoiding plastic is great, but budgeting is just as important when choosing to pay cash.

3. Saving Your Info With the online Vendors. Those online shopping sites are so considerate to save your address and credit card information — some even have one-click ordering buttons, so you can buy something in just a second. It’s very easy, but also very dangerous.

4. Clipping Unneeded Coupons. The truth is that coupons can make us buy things even we didn’t plan for.

5. Shopping With Your Emotions — the worst type of shopping behavior. It was a rough week, or a good one, or you want to reward yourself for losing a few pounds, so you go shopping. You earned that new dress, that new gadget, that big pie — it was on sale, too. Letting your mood dictate your buying decisions is the quickest way to go broke. Sober up before shopping.

6. Not Planning Ahead. It’s Tuesday, you’re tired, and have no idea what you’ll make for dinner. A great night for takeout, right? Using data from the BLS, it’s estimated that the average family of four spends over $4,000 on eating out — a very expensive habit that will make you broke in a hurry.

I am writing this while thinking of the spending habits of my children. I surely wish they are all free from these wasteful habits.

On 10/9/2010, I read an article named “Top 6 Mindless Money Wasters” by Sham Gad. Here’s the short list.

1. Convenience Stores. Remember you have to pay for the goods and the convenience. Nothing comes free. People who like to buy on the spur of the moment are the biggest losers here.

2. Cell or your home phone plans. Be careful of your monthly bill. You might be paying more than you sign up for

3. Soft Drinks at restaurant. It always costs more than the one bought at grocery store.

4. Unnecessary Bank Fees
5. Magazines. Indeed, with the speed of internet, who needs to subsribe magazines? Or you can always spend some time at local bookstore or library.

6. Annual Credit Card Fees. It makes no sense when there are so many fee free credit cards.

The last piece of advice given by the author is “Be Proactive –Spend a couple of hours and go over the above categories along with any other regular habits you may have accumulated over the years. The time will be well spent as it could mean hundreds of dollars of recurring annual savings.”

Sometime ago I heard this news. A woman earning $40K yearly bought a $50K car. It makes no sense that she lives beyond her means. When she was asked why, she said, “I work hard. I deserve it.” It is just this simple, probably out of the most simplistic mind.

Her explanation is faulty on several accounts.
(1) She should not spend more than her income, unless it is absolutely necessary, like buying a house.

(2) She is unable to think ahead and foresee any possibilities in the near future and prepare for the unexpected. e.g. what would happen if she lost her $40K job? In the long run, it is best to save first, spend second instead of the other way around.

(3) Together with an expensive car, she has to equip it with high insurance and maintenance.

(4) When she has very limited income, she has to sacrifice her other necessities in order to enjoy that luxury car.

My daughter thinks she should put aside some of her earnings and should not buy that expensive car since she doesn’t need it and cannot afford it. I am glad to see even my teenage child has more commonsense than this adult woman.

Recently, I read something like advice to people in bad economic time. Most of them are simply commonsense. I am surprised that people need to be taught about all this. Here are some interesting points.

(1) Cut spending to the bone, which means no dining out, no entertainment.

(2) Be honest about what is a want and what is a need. That is, avoid wasting on your want. Put food on the table before anything else.

(3) If you have to borrow, spend borrowed money on the basic necessities only. Yes, don’t we know better than this?

(4) Don’t touch your retirement savings.

(5) If you’re nearly tapped out: take any job offer. The key is to generate income while you continue to look for a better job. Remember beggars can’t be choosers. Too bad that’s not what most people do. Some of them, with some skill and education, would not stoop to any unskilled job.

(6) Stay where you are if you can unless you absolutely must move. Because moving always involve extra cost.

(7) If you’re thinking of walking away your house: talk to an expert and exhaust all other options first.

(8) If you watched in horror as your retirement fund took a plunge, do nothing. It will climb up eventually.

On 8/24/2010 I had a monitor from New Mexico and the next day I had one from Michigan. We talked about the hot weather that we had to endure this year. To my surprise, both of the monitors told me how to save on electricity on hot days.

I learned one monitor used fans instead of air conditioner to save energy, the other living up north has tried to keep her bill under $100.

Who ever said Americans are wasteful? Not all of them at least. To be sure, they are hard-working monitors, and they are also exceptions to the rule in exercising financial discipline on themselves. They are the thrifty minorities, more so than most Americans that I have known.

On 6/9/2010, I stopped by a local bank on my home way from work. Normally I don’t check the deposit or withdrawal slips against monthly bank statements, as I trust them to do the right thing all the time. Last month while I was cleaning my bag, digging out all the deposit slips, for the first time, I checked one deposit slip with the bank statement that I just received in mail that day.

To my surprise, I could not find on the statement one few-hundred-dollar deposit that I made on 4/16. I was intrigued and was determined to find out why. So here I was in front of a bank teller, asking him to help me see where this deposit should show up. While he was reading my statement and my deposit slip, his face turned red. I could sense there was something not right.

It turned out that the money that I deposited went to another person’s account, by accident as I was told. I will never know how that has happened. My mind was running fast through numerous deposits that I have made over the last decade and who knows how much money have gone to some unknown accounts this way, when you would think you can trust all bank people to do the right thing all the time. Even if it is a pure accident, the loss is on me and I have no idea how much I have lost over the years.

I can see my old habit of trusting people blindly is hurting me financially. I am not sure if it is a blind trust or I have been too lazy to do a check myself, cheating myself with the belief that I should trust these bank people. The moral lesson is when it comes your money, you cannot trust the bank or anyone without doing your own checking.

A friend of mine at the skating ground once asked me how I taught my children financial responsibility. I told her I taught them with my daily activities. They know so well that they don’t need to be specifically told. The following instances reveal a lot.

I shared this joke my daughter on the weekend before mid-autumn festival. A person needs to send a coat overseas. He takes out the buttons from the coat before sending so that it would weigh less and cost less. My daughter said, “That must be you, mom.” I am flattered. In fact, I am not as resourceful as this person.

On the same day, my daughter and I went to Border’s bookstore. When she saw me carrying a small cup of coffee, she said, “Let me guess. It must be free.” Yes, she was right. It was a free gift sent to me by Border’s on my birthday. She knows I always carry my own tea cup when we go there.

On 9/18/2010, a Saturday afternoon, I was reading Psychology Today while waiting for my daughter’s art lesson. As always, I find many interesting reads here.

There is one article called “It’s so loud. I can’t hear my budget” by Emily Anthes. It answers a question that has puzzled me since 2008. During that year I frequented places like Aeropostale with my daughter. While she took time trying clothes, I was waiting outside, deeply disturbed by the loud ‘music’ or rather noise pollution in the store. I felt so miserable by the deafening noice that I kept asking her to hurry up, “Get a piece and let’s get out of this place.” I even asked the salesperson to turn down the volume. He told me it was company’s policy throughout all stores nationwide to set noise at this level.

Emily Anthes’ article finally reveals the ulterior purpose behind the deafening noice.

(1) The loud music creates a permanent party atmosphere. Loud music means party, fun, cool clothes, and youth. “If it’s too loud, you’re too old.”

(2) “People make more impulsive purchase when they are overstimulated. Loud volume leads to sensory overload, which weakens self-control. Overload makes people move into less deliberate mode of decision making. People might be more likely to be lured by discounts on items that they might not really want, and susceptible to other influences.”

As a dutiful consumer, I feel fooled and manipulated. I wish people can see through this trick and become wiser. As my daughter suggests, “Put on your ear plugs if you have to go to those stores.”

I read a report on 9/16/2010, not a pleasant one when the mid-term election is drawing near. On the other hand, it is not surprised to learn that “The number of people in poverty in 2009 was the largest in the 51 years for which the US government has been publishing estimates. The figures show a sharp rise in poverty since the beginning of the US recession in December 2007. Among the working-age population, ages 18 to 65, poverty rose from 11.7% to 12.9%, the highest level since the 1960s… The number of people in poverty increased by nearly 4m – to 43.6m – between 2008 and 2009, officials said.”

There is one interesting fact in the report on Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the US: 2009. That is, the report “indicates Americans of Asian origin are the richest, while black people are the poorest.” I am sure the white would come up the richest if you only counted the Jews.

This seems to be self-evident when you look at the dominant population in institutions of higher education and those of incarceration. You can write tons of books on the differences between these two ethnic groups, suffice it to say that one salient difference is that of culture.

While Asian Americans live in a culture that is gravitated toward financial success, whatever that is, black people must have something missing in their culture that can help them in that direction. To be sure, we are all products of our culture.

Contined from yesterday.
(11) As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.

(12) The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth. [The country has seen an increasing army of low-income workers]

(13) Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.

(14) In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.

(15) The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America’s corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.

(16) In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.

(17) More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying. [Service section seems to be the dumping ground or default place for anybody fall from middle class.]

(18) For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

(19) This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour. [This is partly the result of globalization. Americans have to compete globally instead of feeding itself by reaping the fruits of labor from third-world countries.]

(20) Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 – the highest rate in 20 years.

(21) Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.

(22) The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

The above figures show clearly the middle-class is shrinking and the American society is gradually taking the shape of hourglass. It also reveals the economic behavior of most of Americans. I keep telling my children to put aside at least 10% of their paycheck and never spend it all. If anything, this is one of the economic lessons that we can learn from the above statistics.

The following is from Michael Snyder’s article “The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking, Here Are the Stats to Prove it” posted on 7/15/2010. My comments are inside [my comment]

(1) 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.

(2) 61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007. [This tells a lot. First, it confirms that these people use up all their paychecks, leaving nothing for rainy days. So lack of common sense for so many people! Second, probably some of them could put aside 5% of their paycheck but they choose not to. Third, if they have not put aside at least 5% of their paycheck, their mentality is: live for today and let devil take care of tomorrow. Imagine this!]

(3) 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

(4) 36 percent of Americans say that they don’t contribute anything to retirement savings.

(5) A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.

(6) 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year. [For both No.5 & 6, if you religiously put aside at least 5% of your paycheck each pay period, you would have more in your retirement and would not have to keep on working beyond retirement age. Sadly to say, for most people have chosen a different lifestyle.]

(7) Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.

(8) Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

(9) For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.

(10) In 1950, the ratio of the average executive’s paycheck to the average worker’s paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.

To be continued…

I found this article last Friday, 7/2/2010, by Chris Isidore, “The recession killed off 7.9 million jobs. It’s increasingly likely that many will never come back.”

The article cites the government jobs report issued that day, “The job losses during the Great Recession were so off the chart, that even though we’ve gained about 600,000 private sector jobs back, we’ve got nearly 8 million jobs to go,” said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute.

Even worse is the prediction that “We’ve entered a era where the United States will see more frequent recessions than anyone is used to,” Achuthan said.

The article reminds me of two Chinese college graduates here. Neither of them were fortunate enough to land on a job they desired. One of them went on to graduate school, the other went back to China to learn Chinese and hopefully will find a job in China. This brought to my mind the young relative who returned to China exactly two months ago and is still home waiting for a job.

The message is loud and clear to all of us –unless, you excel in your field, nowadays, job perspective is depressing, no matter where you find yourself.

By the way, I went through some of my early postings yesterday. It is almost embarrassing to visit these entries. I must have tortured readers miserably with those lengthy writings.

When people talk about the desperate US job market, it is easy to get pessimistic about the future. Someone even asked me if I regret having come to the US and my children might have an easy life in China. Had I stayed in China, I surely would have a different path, most likely as a teaching professor. Yet, regret is never part of me.

I believe there is a future for every one of us even if the future of US economy is not bright and cheerful. The key to success in job market is global solution, which is the nature of future job structure, the one that defies any national boundary. This globally interweaving job market belongs to not any nation but bold and outstanding individuals who never for a second cease to look for global solution for global problem.

Computing technologies and remote access via internet bring about unlimited possibilities, making outsourcing a cheap solution even for doctors and professors. If we can use big screens for global conference, we can use it for global classroom, too, bringing education to every corner of the world, either Africa or Latin America. Pretty soon people will have to seek ways to lower the cost for higher education in US.

Bold thinking plus careful planning and solid efforts will give one a head up. No country is isolated and we all float or sink together. Protectionism is loser’s solution, hurting the doer more than anybody else.

You have to face global community for market and solution if you dare to rise above. This is written for my children and their generation.

Our clinic asked everybody to make donations to sponsor a family in need. This family hands us a list of what they want for Christmas. The list includes Jeans, Any new release DVD’s, Revlon new completion #2 makeup, any kind of kid movie on DVD, Axe for men, board games, Wal-mart, Best buy or Game Exchange gift cards, any kind of musical DVD, remote control car, Action figures, Transformers, Bi-onicals, … I become so impatient going their list.

I am not going to donate anything. Here’s why:
(1) I never did Christmas shopping for my children and never encouraged them to get anything for nothing, as if there were a real Santa burning money for all the kids in the world. Why should I deviate from my normal practice this time?

(2) As far as I can see, they can live very well without these stuff. That is, they don’t really need any of them and they just want something extra. I will take care of the need first and wait till I deserve it to indulge the want. They can do the same.

(3) I never bought anything that I cannot afford, other than the house. I wait till I have enough for the purchase. Why can’t they wait till they have enough? Nobody’s life is easy.

I have made clear my position on Christmas shopping. Yes, I am firmly against this wasteful practice of shopping spree, commercialization of a religious holiday, as if it were Jesus’ wish for everybody to buy and spend in celebration of his birthday.

Even more stupid is the saying “shop till you drop.” Indeed, shop till the nation drops. How ridiculous can we be? Watching Christmas shoppers often reminds me of the statement that the average intelligent level of the nation is that of a six-grader. No wonder I become impatient so easily among six-graders!

P.S. Before posting this, my daughter read the draft and asked me “Did you email it to your co-workers?” No, not that I am afraid of anything but that I don’t care sharing any of my thoughts with those around me. Here’s one funny thing at my office, some of my co-workers always do the writing on my behalf when writing is needed. Because they know my English writing is pitifully incompetent. Bless their hearts.

This is from the seminar that I attended on market America last Saturday evening while my daughter was skating. Talk about early retirement so that you can start doing whatever you enjoy, it seems an unrealistic dream for the majority of Americans (95 – 28), 67% of them at age 65.

For every 100 people, by the time they should reach age 65,
1% become wealthy,
4% financially fit, do not need to work,
28% dead, without actually reaching it,
5% still working, out of necessity,
62% flat broke, not having enough to live by even if they work their butts off.

What a dreadful picture! I think of one of my neighbors who told me she had to work into her 70s. I can’t believe only a tiny 5% of Americans do not need to work by age 65.

I believe there are two main explanations — either the majority of Americans do not earn enough to enjoy early retirement or they do make plenty but equally do they spend that plenty. Simply put it, they have not saved enough from their earnings. I see too many cases that fit second explanation. It is rather disheartening if you are one of the working 65-year-old in America. But you got nobody to blame but yourself. One can always do better than this if one starts saving for retirement right after the first employment.

On the way home that night, I shared it with my daughter. “I will be one of the 5%, financially fit not to have to work way before that age,” said she. I am sure the thought of this will transform into the desired reality.

I just learned a new acronym today. JOB = Just Over Broke. For quite a few Americans, a job mean JOB when they live from paycheck to paycheck without any savings. Once they lose the job, they are literally broke, bankrupt, destitute, down-and-out indigent! Sooo terribly sad.

Last weekend, a friend of mine called telling me that her 14-year-old daughter had been babysitting since last year and had saved $1,500. She asked her mom where to invest this savings. I am very much impressed. I don’t know what to say. She has more economic sense than some of adult American friends that I know of.

By the way, sometimes I see the term indigent stamped in a patient’s medical record cover, which means no money and no insurance. How many choices of treatment can an indigent cancer patient have? Not many.

On Monday, on the way home from the skating place, my daughter and another Chinese girl were chatting all the way. The topic was how much money they would make in the future. One said one million, the other said over two million. I was too tired to join the conversation, much as I wanted to. I am sure my daughter and her generation will never know the experience of JOB if they ever learn something from the current economic bitterness.

My son has been very much into startups since his high school years, from his internet venture to this summer job, and endless plans and ideas. Out of my wild ignorance, I often interpret it as his desire to be his own boss, an extreme form of individualism, the product of American education, so unlike me with an overdose of patience to work with the most absurd species. I started looking at his startup from a new perspective after I read these words by Paul Zane Pilzer.

Pilzer, author of many books including The Next Millionaires, made a comment on the virtue of startup, “When you create a business, you create something that improves the life of your customer, of another person, maybe of ten people, of a thousand people, of a million people. There’s no higher calling. ”

So nicely put. I feel ashamed for not being able to take on this higher calling.

I know I have talked a lot about money. How I hate this topic! Too bad living through this financial crisis, we simply cannot shake the topic out of our heads. Plus, as I come from a different culture and being rather old fashioned at that, I feel rather compulsive at seizing every opportunity to drill the concept of saving into my children. They grew up in the richest and the most wasteful land of all, that is, spoiled under our loving care without ever feeling deprived. Indeed, how I dislike this culture of massive consumption. Okay, here’s another one.

A friend of mine, a young one, talked to me about making money quickly, because that friend of mine needed money badly in order to pay the bills. I learn that some people take second jobs or even consider selling blood for money.

To be sure, my friend needs money all the time — for clothes, parties, for drink, hair, nails, rent, gas, water, electricity, cable TV, cell phone, etc. It is so sad that we have to sacrifice extra time in order to pay all these bills. Oh, how I hate having my precious time taken away this way!

I am concerned when I think of my children. Unless they have the ability to make unlimited income, they must find a system to make sure that they don’t over-spend their paycheck like most of young people today.

I told my daughter during our daily walk that, no matter how much or how little she makes, she must put down at least 10% of her paycheck into savings and must not get herself in a situation where she has to work two jobs to make ends meet.

I know my teaching runs against the mainstream practice of spending more than one’s income through borrowing. I seem to over-emphasize on saving instead of making money. Well, here’s my newest and greatest statement: you should either have the ability to make unlimited income or saving as much as you can. No matter what, never find yourself in any dire financial situation.

Yesterday during lunch time, I was on my way to SMW on 83red street. Suddenly, I heard police siren threatening from behind. I checked my rear mirror and saw a police car following me. “Do I look like a terrorist or what?” Not sure what was going on, I stopped the car. A young policeman stepped out of his car and walked toward me with a triumphant look.

He accused me of violating traffic law by “turning right on red light.” “I thought we could turn right as long as the traffic was clear,” I explained. “Not here,” the cop said with a faint smile on the corner of his month and a haha-got-ya look. He checked my license and insurance, then wrote a ticket of a heavy fine, saying he could double this fine and could send this traffic law violation to my insurance company, which means raising my insurance premium. I protested, he told me I could get into more trouble for showing contempt for law. I could saw the end result of throwing an egg against a rock and I didn’t want to be that egg. So, I shut up and drove away.

I have never tasted the destructive power of a law enforcement till that moment. I was mad beyond words. I told my daughter about this on the way home. Both of us were boilingly mad and throwing out bad words profusely. Finally, I said “Let’s consider this as a donation to the police department since money is in short supply everywhere and that policeman was just trying to raise money, except I cannot claim it as tax deductible donation.”

P.S. today I looked for the sign saying no turn on red at that intersection. Indeed, there is one. Still, it doesn’t say specifically no RIGHT turn on red as the conventional wisdom implies on left turn on red. Ouch, it hurts to pay for this ambiguity.

P.S. 6/18, I talked to someone else about this sign and was told blankly, “No turn on red means no turn whatever, left or right.” I knew it. Just need to be told again.

A neighbor of mine told me they never had enough no matter how much the bread-maker in the family brought home.

This brings to my mind another aspect of securing financial security — our financial situation depends on both making and spending money. Many people have their eyes on making money, but not on how they squander money like water and running faster than they can make. Imagine this!

We were at graduate school when my son came along unexpectedly. We lived on the meager income from part-time teaching and scholarship. While we never deprived ourselves, we still managed to keep growing thousands of savings.

Have you realized that your desire is fathomless but your paycheck is so miserably limited? Unless you know how to spend wisely, you will never be able to know financial security. How? Spend only on things you really need not what you desire. You reward yourself with some luxury only when you have done something deserving this. A simple and sweet truth for anyone who cannot make unlimited income for their equally limitless desires.

My son’s summer job involves his newly-incorporated startup with an MIT Ph.D holder, an MIT Ph.D candidate, and his high school friend. He is the youngest of the four. They were strong enough to get funding for the summer. Right now everything is just an idea, without any product and nothing being able to bring in revenue.

Being initially his idea, my son has always wanted to have his own company. He worked on something during high school years. For this one, he has worked very hard and was excited when it got funding. I don’t know anything about starting up your own company and I do hope they are keenly aware of the fact that they need to generate something so that they can go beyond this summer. There are so many tons of things that they urgently need to take care of this summer in order to keep the startup afloat for the long, long time to come.

Now my mind is jammed with too many what-ifs, self-invited headache, and I can do nothing but wishing everything goes well with it. What a good feeling!

This is a sad case of life and death and of building a house on one pillar.
Every time I see an Asian patient at our clinic, my mind drifts back to a colleague of mine back in late 1990s. I remember vividly when they were at our place and I talked to him about his wife staying home with the children. I said, “It’s better that your wife has some kind of job instead of staying at home. It always brings more security if both have jobs.” He said jokingly, “Don’t worry. I won’t die that soon.”

I felt a bit stung at his word, as if I was trying to jinx him. “Hey, I don’t mean that. I mean no job is secure and you feel a little secure if both of you work, at least the benefits will continue if one lost the job. I would think it a good idea for your wife to take some classes or training while she is young and just get ready for a job.” They were about mid-30s then. He sounded so full of confidence at that time. I know how nasty I can be when it comes to giving unwelcome advice. I always feel like slapping my face afterwards.

During the Thanksgiving of 2004, I saw him again at a Chinese church, so delightful seeing him with his 2-year-old son, as young and handsome as before. We had kept in touch over the phone and seldom saw each other. There was no sign of illness at that time. But who knows that was the last time that I ever saw him. I was totally shocked and speechless when I learned that he passed away in less than a year of brain cancer and he was about 41 years old, leaving behind three children and a jobless wife. It was about 6 years after we talked about security and he assured me that he would not die that soon. Life is so fragile and unpredictable.

I know the family has been very close to a Chinese church, which must help the widow and the children more than I can imagine. Then again, I keep wondering if he could have been better off during Sprint massive layoff in 2001-2003 had he listened to my advice, because I learned over the phone that he was overcome with worries, fear, and anxiety – a long range of negative feelings, enough to crush an iron-man, so much so that he did not sleep for the week before the announcement of layoff. I could feel his burden with three children, a house, a wife, all depending on his precarious paycheck, like a big mansion standing on one pillar. But I would not talk about his wife’s job any more.

Life is so unpredictable and beyond our control. It gets even more scary for many first generation immigrants here when we don’t have our extended family here to tide over any misfortune. Here comes the cross-standing church building, our forever dependable pillar, emotional one at least. Still, I would advice against building your mansion on one pillar, like that “Dear Departed.”

Some of my friends have asked me about jobs at healthcare industry. Are they secure? They were wondering. Not exactly. Nothing is guaranteed and nothing is secure. Face this reality — anything that can be digitalized can be offshored. e.g. medical transcription, radiology images, medical coding and billing. You can always scan the paper, the bill and transfer it anywhere you can find cheap labor to analyze it and file it to the insurance company.

At least two key trends have been made possible by IT and Internet. The first trend is going electronic in as many fields as possible, eGovernment, eHealth, etc. The general rule is any jobs that need in person service in health care, like doctors and nurses, cannot be outsourced.

The second trend, also made possible by the Internet, is more and more companies are seeking for global solution, which means seeking globally for cheaper solutions and high profit. The fast development of IT and Internet opens unlimited possibilities for the way a company organize and runs its business.

Face this fact, if you think you can put on a white uniform working securely in a lab, chances are someone in other countries can do a similar job or even better job than you, all at a fraction of your paycheck. There is nothing to stop the off shoring of this whole lab. This is only one possible scenario. Not that far-fetched when you are in dire need for cheaper solution. That is, until everybody’s labor gets cheaper not by dozen.

The weekend was so freakingly un-relaxing when I had to freak my brain out on 2008 tax return and financial aid application for my son, one built upon the other. The deadline is 4/15, the coming Wednesday, being aware of the approaching date further pounding blood into my swirling head.

The cost of higher education is higher than sky — reaching nearly 60K per year, the thought of which frightens my shrinking wit out of my body when I look ahead to the years when my daughter will be there.

We were so unfortunate last year to have our tax audited and had to render a fine of a few thousand sweet dollars. How crazy can things become? I have no idea. Right now, I only need to collect all my brain power and focus on getting the tax return and financial aid application forms out of the door before the threatening deadline.

Good thing I had one return complete, the federal tax, still need to work on state tax return.

My daughter said I could pay professional tax help over $300 to get it out of my head. Last year I had a coupon and had an Indian tax guy estimate the cost of my tax preparation, which reached $480. Forget that help. How I wish to stay away from torturing my head! Well, for that price? I guess I have not loved my head that much yet.