Obamacare and Me

There are things I care about and things I don't.  I honestly don't care about the politics of the Affordable Care Act.  I don't care who the political winners and losers are.  I mostly care about getting a good deal.  Forget the millions of uninsured, and the kids who can now stay on their parents' policies, this is America, and I just care about me, and how much free stuff I can get.  Since getting a new health insurance policy for my family I have taken my kids in for vaccines and check ups that were covered at 100% (that means free), I have gone to an annual gynecological exam which was free, and I just made an appointment to have a mammogram, which will also be free.  I like free.  Ok, it's not really free, I'm still paying really high premiums, so I'm actually paying for it, but at least I finally feel like I'm getting something for those premiums, and not having to also pay co-pays and other bills on top of that monthly payment.  Apparently there are lots of people who don't like this new law because they'd rather pay for stuff they can now get for free.  You want to pay for free stuff?  Fine, I'm sure someone will take your money.  Actually, I'm that someone.  Just pay me.

I don't care about the Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes break up.  And I don't really care about the women who think they should be charged more than men for health insurance.  I guess I'm just cold hearted.  On the news they say most people oppose the health care law, so I guess most women would rather pay more than men for the privilege of not going bankrupt from medical costs, like the cost of having babies, or avoiding having babies.  I'm also sure there are lots of really rational people who get sick and require a lot of expensive care, but they'd just as soon decline any medical services after the cost of their care has reached a million dollars.  I guess I'm just not a good example of the average American, because I'd rather get the treatment that saves my life even after that million has been spent on me. 

I don't care who makes up what claims about the Affordable Care Act.  Like that actor who was in one of the ads for Romney's Massachusetts Health Plan after it came out,  who's now paying half of what he paid in health insurance premium beforehand.  I just saw him in an interview.  I don't care about him.  I care about me, and about getting a good deal.

I care about the nice letters and emails I got from the health insurers right after the Supreme court ruling.  I got a very reassuring email from Cigna, my current health insurer, telling me that nothing was actually going to change.  I also got a letter from Anthem, my previous insurer (whose marketing department clearly doesn't know I left them) about the importance of scheduling preventative care appointments to keep myself well.  I think it's beautiful that they still care about me, even though I no longer pay them.  And I care about them, and their ability to make a big profit off their customers.  Because corporations are people.

I know, I know, they're going to FORCE me to buy insurance now.  Well, they don't have to force me, I already have it.  Maybe you do too.  Otherwise they're going to FORCE you to buy it.  And if you can't afford it they're going to give you money and FORCE you to use it to buy health insurance.  But they are going to have to force me to take rebates for the insurance premiums I paid that weren't spent on my healthcare, because --- oh wait, I like getting money back, never mind.  Anyway, I know I'm supposed to hate this job-killing law.  They told me so. I guess I just don't understand it well enough yet.  I'm sure I'll hate it once I understand it better.  Or maybe I'll start caring about other people all of a sudden, and then I'll see how bad this is for everyone except me.

What I really care about is the foie gras ban which goes into effect Sunday.  

Going All Handcrafted Locavore

I'm thinking a lot about where I'm spending my money these days.  After my Sears experience, I don't want to shop at those heartless, big box stores, which sell products manufactured anonymously in China.  I want to feel good about where I'm shopping.  I want to spend money with businesses that care about me and represent my values.  I want to support local, sustainable businesses that sell high quality products with ingredients that are locally sourced.  It makes me feel connected to my neighbors and my community.  I want to support artisans and craftspeople who infuse their products with integrity and even love.  Using their products makes me feel special, so instead of just be shopping, I will be supporting things I believe in, and that will make me feel good about myself.

And not just just on American Express Small Business Saturdays!  

But what does it mean to shop local?  

Some states have been printing their own local currencies, like Massachusetts' BerkShares, which can only be used in the Berkshire region of the state.  You can go to a bank in that area and buy some BerkShares that you can then only spend in the local businesses, so you will choose to support those businesses instead of those suspicious national chains.  It's like buying carnival tickets --- it makes you buy more popcorn because the tickets are useless outside the carnival.   It makes you "go locavore" as I read in an article.  Of the roughly 110 local currencies trading in the U.S., California is in the lead with 15 different currencies.  Berkeley, of course, has 2 different kinds ---- I like the one named "Berkeley Bread", which I believe is now defunct. 

Maybe you can use your local dough at one of those trendy "cash mobs" you might have heard about.  Instead of meeting somewhere to break into seemingly spontaneous group choreography, a group of people agree to all descend upon a local store and each spend at least $20 there at a certain date and time.  It's a win-win: The store owner gets a nice cash infusion and some publicity, and the cash mobsters walk away feeling smug.

And what does it mean to be handcrafted?

Everything now is being advertised at handcrafted.  Handcrafted chocolates, handcrafted burgers.  handcrafted beer.  Not that generic, low class stuff that comes from a machine!  Please.  My mom is into handmade salt.  Isn't salt produced by evaporation or mining?  Handcrafted mining?  I just heard an ad on the radio for California Hand-Grown Avocados.  Are all the others machine grown?  What's next, hand grown chickens?  I just googled it.  You can get handcrafted chicken coops, handcrafted chicken sausage, and handcrafted chicken backpacks.   So what's the big fascination with handcrafted?  The dictionary definition is "made by hand, rather than by machine."  Somehow I feel all warm and fuzzy thinking that some really nice person handcrafted that coffee I just drank.  But an iPad is made by human hands.  So is it handcrafted?  It's not quite indy and edgy enough to qualify, is it?  It's too sleek and perfect. 

And really, why buy what you can just make yourself?  

Or better yet, have the kids make it!   When I went to art school, I heard lots of people look at the results of our deep, personal explorations and say, "My 2 year old could do that."  Well, now I have my own kids, and ya know what?  It's true!  Your 2 year old CAN do that!  And so can mine!  And kids should really start pulling their weight financially by the age of 2.  My kids make me stuff all the time.  And they make A LOT of it!  My 6 year old can fill an entire sketchbook in an afternoon.  Mother's Day was just a bonanza of the handcrafted, imperfect, but personal and meaningful.  That drawing of batman that now adorns the wall of my family room (not hanging, but actually drawn on the wall itself) is actually a handcrafted mural full of integrity and social commentary ---- a personalization of an anonymous wall; an experiment in tagging ---- so I was grateful to my son for adding that piece to our collection.

And really, why is handcrafted by a child less valuable than handcrafted by an adult?  Especially when the results are often indistinguishable.  Is it a matter of scarcity?  I mean does the sheer quantity of a child's output make the result less rare, and thus, less valuable?  Do we need rarity in our handcrafted?  Do I care how many beaded necklaces that lady sells through her Etsy shop?  And if I pitch my kids' drawings anonymously, just saying they're done by an "up and coming" young artist with a primitive style (rather than by an actual child)  will I manage to not disrupt the handcrafted mystique, and successfully separate people from their money with all that good will of supporting their local artisan?

West Elm now sells Etsy products.  I wonder if we can get a mass distribution deal there.  And we could outsource production to other children when mine have been exhausted.  Eventually, we can have children in China produce huge stacks of drawings, because with the internet, who really cares where anyone is….  

Oh wait, that's not locavore…  Ok, but I'm still going to start demanding all my goods and services be handcrafted from now on.  And I want handcrafted legal documents protecting me from the consequences of poor quality. 

Immature Hashtags and Small Victories

Unhappy with customer service?  Hit 'em with a hashtag.

I've been unhappy with Sears for quite some time, but my vacuum cleaner is still under warranty with them, and I intend to get my money's worth, so last week I decided to take it in for service.  Now mind you, when I bought my vacuum cleaner at the Sears store in Santa Monica, I could just take it there for service, but then they closed that service center and sent us to Culver City for service.  I wasn't too upset about this, because it was actually a bit closer for me, but then they closed that service center too, and now we have to go out to the Baldwin Hills Location at Crenshaw Plaza, which is a significantly bigger shlep.  So I set off to take my canister vac to the service center, and as I try to enter the store, the door won't open.  A woman approaches me from the other side of the glass, looks at me holding a toddler in one arm and a canister vac in the other, and points to the sign that shows they're not open yet.  No smile, no friendly words, not rushing off to do anything else, just looking at me.  We stand there for a while like this, staring at each other; me in disbelief, her looking at me blankly, as if to say, "wow, that must be hard to balance like that".  Finally, I leave, because I have to be across town for a meeting.  

Two hours later, I come back, and the door opens, and this time I'm greeted by a machine.  The machine welcomes me to Sears, as if we are both standing somewhere far more exciting than a dirty back hallway inside a delivery gate. The machine asks me to enter my last name, and choose which type of service I'm there for.  It then tells me to wait for a representative to emerge from behind the Employees Only door.  I do, and as I wait, I listen to other people cussing at the machine, trying to get it to understand their problems.

Finally, a guy comes out, takes my vacuum cleaner and says I'll get it back in two weeks because it has to be sent out to Fullerton for service now.   

Annoyed, I walk out and quickly tweet something about the crappy customer service at Sears these days, with the hashtag "searssucks".  

Two minutes later, I get a message showing I'm now being followed by @Searscares.  After 3 days of twitter and email exchanges (during which I try to seem polite, yet unsatisfied)  I get a call from Kia, from something like the Don't-Hate-Us department at Sears, and she wants to hear me complain.  I, of course, am only too happy to oblige!  So I vent (but try to remain polite and not blame her for the lame company she works for). After she has validated my frustration, she offers to send me a $30 gift card.  Woohoo!  

I call my father to brag.  He says, "That's nothin'!  I've got hundreds of dollars in gift cards from them."  I guess he complains a lot.  Then I tell my mother, and she says, "They recorded your call to use for training purposes.  It's like a focus group.  They got your input for only $30 --- that's a great deal for them!"  OK, way to steal my thunder, folks.

So now I'm thinking maybe I'll keep tweeting my displeasure with Sears once a week, and build up a nice passive income from their hush-money handouts.  And maybe I'll start tweeting unflattering comments about other large retailers too --- maybe Best Buy or Walmart.  I've never even been in a Walmart!  But I'll bet they also have a team of negative-tweet catchers that will pay me something to stop.  I don't even have to go in the store, I can just make stuff up.  I won't use names, no one will get hurt.  But they'll also probably just send me gift cards for use at their stores, and I'm not sure what I'd actually want from their stores.  I don't think I'd want to buy a vacuum cleaner from them.  So I was thinking that maybe, rather than making up childish hashtags to use when tweeting unpleasant, and possibly fictitious things about Sears or Walmart in cyberspace, hoping I might elicit a response (and a gift card) from their damage control people, maybe I could just blog about all this, and then you would click on some of these ads (Ahem, that's your cue, start clicking), then I'd make enough money to buy a new vacuum cleaner from a different store ---- maybe a nice local store, where I can just go tell the manager, or even the owner if I'm unhappy about something, and maybe that business owner will be kind enough, and care enough about my business to just open the door for me when I arrive a few minutes before they open holding a child and a vacuum cleaner.  

Then I'll have to come up with nice hashtags.  

Until then, #searsstillsucks.

The Biggest Loser

The equity markets enjoyed a nice, big rally Tuesday, and a smaller one today, after some rather unpleasant losses lately.  In my world of lost sleep, lost luggage and lost causes, I've been trying to put financial losses into some kind of perspective.  Even after yesterday's rally, we've still lost about 7.5% from the March high of 1422 on the S&P, and the Euro has lost about 7.5% of its value against the dollar .  Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase lost $17.5 billion in some sketchy trading activity a few weeks ago, and movie-going on Memorial Day weekend lost about 31% from last year.  Was this because of mega-flop John Carter?  It lost about $84 million.

And let's not forget our "friend" Mark Zuckerberg, who seems to have lost about $5 billion in the last couple of weeks (give or take a mil).  Compare that to Greece's largest lender, National Bank, which reported a $666 million loss in the first quarter.  Maybe Zuckerberg can bail them out!  He could at least "like" their page, and change his privacy settings to allow targeted ads using pictures of him vacationing in Greece.  

So where did it all go?  The lost money ---- did it all just evaporate and cease to exist?  Or did it just go somewhere else?  Is it all a Zero-Sum game? Ya know, a "my loss is proportionate to your gain" type of thing.  Like if the job went to to that guy over there, it didn't go to you, so his gain is the same size as your loss.  For every winner there's a loser, whose despair is equal to the winner's joy.  If it's a zero sum game, losses don't evaporate, they just go to the guy on the other side of the deal --- like the person who you bought your Facebook shares from.  And the winners and losers keep shifting.  Who won in that deal?  You, who got shares of a supposedly hot IPO, or the other guy, who got your money?  The person you sold your FB shares to at $35 may have thought he was the winner, because it was below what you paid at the IPO, but when he resold those shares to the next person at $28 he didn't feel like such a winner anymore. The person who bought them at $28 may end up a big winner, or an even bigger loser, when there's no one who believes FB will be able to make any money off ads no one seems to be clicking (and aren't even visible on my iPhone FB app).  

So who really wins when FB goes down from $45 to $25 a share?  Short sellers?  Brokerage houses handling the trades?  Anyone else?  Bueller? 

Is John Carter's loss the Avenger's gain?  For it to be a zero sum game, the Avengers would have to have made $84 million, and so far it's made $1.3 billion worldwide, so that's not a zero sum.

The Euro's loss is your gain, if, say, you're planning a trip to Paris this summer.  You can get a few more croissants for your buck.  One analyst was just saying that all the trouble in Greece and elsewhere will only strengthen American banks, which will get the business that European institutions lose.

And let's face it, the only thing anyone ever really wants to lose it weight.    What if that were a zero-sum game?  What if you could lose weight and someone else would gain it?  I see potential for a great reality TV show there.  "The Biggest Winner".  People who have really fast metabolisms and can't gain weight could put on someone else's cast off pounds.  But that wouldn't be a zero-sum, it would be a win-win.  So maybe instead the person who took your job and your money would have to also take your fat.

Just brainstorming.

Economic Lessons from British New Wave

A few months ago I wrote about How To Make Yourself Feel Better When The Stock Market Tanks, and today's market action may be a good time to revisit that post.  Terrible economic numbers led to a huge selloff again today, capping off a really painful month of 8.5% declines in equities.  Unemployment is now back up to 8.2%, and in the past month, only 69K new jobs were created, which is half of what was expected, and significantly less rosy than the 275k jobs added in January.  So where's the silver lining?  For that we must turn to Europe.

In 1983, my parents decided to let me and my friend go alone to a rock concert at the Greek theater in Hollywood.  The top of the bill was scowling English singer (and one of my personal musical fav's), Joe jackson, and the opening act was another UK export: an impish young singer in a parachute jumpsuit named Howard Jones.  I was too young to understand anything about the world economy, but seeing as the U.S. jobless rate in 1983 was 10.4%, I now see what Jones meant when he sang "Things can only get better"!  In the UK it was worse --- joblessness in 1983 was over 11%.  By the end of Reagan's second term in 1988, the unemployment numbers declined to 5.4% here in the U.S., and they came down to 8.6% in the U.K., under the warm and loving leadership of Margaret Thatcher.  So things DID get better!  Did the economic improvement come as a result of Jones's infectious optimism?  Perhaps. 

(Later today, you'll have me to thank for the "wo, wo, wo-o-oh" stuck in your head.)

Relative to the impressive job creation data that was coming out a few months ago, today's job numbers look pretty bleak, but when those numbers eventually start improving, the new numbers will look great compared to what we got today, and then everyone will feel better, and start buying up stock to celebrate.  Of course, one of Howard Jones's other big hits was "No One is to Blame", and although that's a beautiful sentiment, we all know who's to blame this time.  Europe.  This whole austerity thing doesn't seem to be working out so well.  Think we've got it bad? Unemployment in Spain is like 24%!  But are they practicing Howard Jonsian optimism? No!  They're rioting in the streets!  They'd be thrilled to see unemployment at 8.2%.  See?  It's all relative.

We've all just been busy watching Kate Middleton's belly for signs of an heir, so we may not have noticed that the UK unemployment rate is currently at 8.2%, just like ours.  And we need a good distraction right now, because watching our investment portfolios decline in value is no fun, and economic improvement can sure take a long time.  The Brits are all wrapped up in Jubilee Fever right now, as Queen Elizabeth celebrates 60 years on the throne with a Diamond Jubilee extravaganza this weekend.  Sure, she's just a figurehead, but the British monarchy drives an estimated £800 million annually in tourist revenue, and the royal household alone employs about 1200 staff members.  Haven't you been watching Downton Abbey??

Watch the video of Howard Jones singing "New Song" .  You'll be so busy watching his improvisational mime sidekick Jed Hoile, that you won't notice there's no band or anything, just Jones and a keyboard, and that would be kind of boring to watch by itself.  Let this video be your example of how to distract yourself while market conditions improve at a snail's pace, and remember that crappy numbers make a good baseline for future year over year comparisons..  Also, busy your mind reading into the lyrics:  "Don't crack up, bend your brain, see both sides, throw off your mental chains."