Thursday, July 29, 2010

2010 Goals: Progress Report

We’re a little past the halfway point of 2010, so I thought it would be a good idea to review the progress so far towards my personal goals for the year. It is an axiom of management that you don’t get what you want, you get what you measure. This is as true in one’s personal life as it is in business.

Goal: Run 50 kilometers of road races.
Status: Complete.
A heavy race schedule in March, April, and May, including one 10K, let me complete this goal by early in June. No races are set for the hot part of the summer, but they will pick up again in September/October time frame. I clearly low-balled this goal. Next year I may have to commit to a half marathon.

Goal: Complete three authors from The New Lifetime Reading Plan.
Status: Complete.
I tackled the English Lake District poets first: Wordsworth and Coleridge. Then I jumped forward forty years and read selected works from the American essayist and philosopher Emerson. Having plucked the low hanging fruit, I have started in on The Story of the Stone, a massive Chinese novel of the late Ming period. At 2500 pages in four volumes, this will keep me occupied until the end of the year. If I get through that this year, next year I may decide to take on Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, all seven volumes of it.

Goal: Entertain at home 12 times throughout the year.
Status: Ahead of schedule.
Man does not live by money alone. A recent study showed that people who had a bigger network of friends tended to live longer. Within my experience, I would argue that they also live better. We are social animals, happiest in a group setting. So far this year we have entertained at home eight times. These have ranged from intimate dinners with another couple to outdoor barbeques with 30+ attendees. Party on, dude!

Goal: Save 20% of earned income.
Status: On-track.
Due to a larger than expected income tax refund, I was able to fund my Roth IRA with the equivalent of 5% of estimated earnings in the first quarter of the year. Between my contribution to the company 401K and the corporate match, another 15% is being added to my retirement funds. Now if only the stock market would recover and start growing again.

Goal: Reduce total debt to less than $60 K.
Status: Ahead of schedule.
Including the payments made at the end of July, I am now down to $62 K in debt from mortgage, car loan, and line of credit. I am paying down principle at the rate of $800 per month, including tripling the equity payment on the monthly mortgage. Debt reduction and savings rate are linked. I could apply a higher percentage to savings, and slow down on debt reduction. But I get a guaranteed 6.5% return on capital by drawing down my mortgage faster, and in today’s market that looks pretty good.

Goal: Earn $2000 at H & R Block.
Status: Failure.
I only made about $1000 during tax season this year. Including the training hours I put in, my hourly rate was very little better than minimum wage. After peak season was over, walk in traffic dropped down to zero, and I dropped my hours down to zero. No point in coming in just to sit in the office. I need to take certification tests to increase my compensation rate, but even then I don’t see myself hitting this goal next year. On the other hand, doing taxes does provide good blog fodder, so I’ll give it at least one more year.

Goal: Take 9 credit hours of graduate level accounting classes.
Status: On track.
My original plan was to take one class (3 credit hours) in Spring, Summer, and Fall semesters. After completing one class in Spring semester, I wasn’t able to find a summer class that fit my schedule. So I have doubled up, and am signed up for two classes starting in September. This is about half a standard academic load, and is more than I have ever taken since I started working. So we’ll see how this goes in the fall.

Goal: 60+ blog posts.
Status: On track.
Seven months into 2010, and I have kept my average of 5 posts a month. I need to focus on posting at least once a month for the balance of the year.

It is easy to focus on goals, and lose sight of the reality that the milestones and measurements are intended to represent. So, to put this progress report into a different perspective: I am healthy and fit, and enjoying time with a wide circle of friends and family. I am continuing to grow both intellectually and professionally, while storing up resources against the vicissitudes that inevitably come to everyone. Life is good!

Friday, July 23, 2010

Title IX and Cheerleading

An interesting legal decision regarding Title IX came down this week. Title IX is the civil rights legislation that governs women’s collegiate sports, and is widely credited with dramatically expanding athletic opportunities for women in college. Basically, the legislation says that you cannot discriminate against woman’s sports in favor of men’s sports.

This is the sticky point. How can you tell if women’s sports are being discriminated against? The most commonly used test is called the proportionality test. What this means is that the percentage of women on the school’s sports teams should equal the percentage of women enrolled in the school. If your student body is 55% women, 55% of the athletes at the school must also be women. If not, you are guilty of discrimination: you better hand out more scholarships to girls, and by the way, you can pay the lawyers on your way out of court.

Since they have to pass the proportionality test, colleges play games with their sports programs, either adding women’s sports or dropping men’s sports. This brings us to the current case.

Quinnipiac University in Connecticut wanted to drop their women’s volleyball team. To make up for the number of slots lost, they claimed that cheerleading counted as a varsity sport. Making the substitution, the proportion of woman athletes was within 4% of the percentage of woman in the student body, which the University claimed was close enough. These claims were not unique to Quinnipiac. Other colleges have made the same assumptions.

Anyway, the volleyball team sued the school (with the help of the ACLU), and the judge ruled that cheerleading was not a sport. In a world where synchronized swimming is an Olympic event, how the hell do you rule out cheerleading as a sport?

What are the criteria to determine if an activity is a sport? I think we can all agree that it should be an organized physical activity, with coaches and competitions. Cheerleading seems to fit the bill in all of those particulars. Just go to YouTube, and you will find videos of astonishing athleticism and teamwork, taken at cheerleading competitions. If Quinnipiac decided that cheerleading was more cost effective (11 slots for volleyball vs. 30 slots for cheerleading), or more popular, than volleyball, what right has a court to interfere with that decision? After all, we live in a world where synchronized swimming is an Olympic event.

Apparently, the judge’s decision turned on the fact that the cheerleading team competed against several different types of other cheerleading teams. They competed against other colleges, but also against club teams not affiliated with any school. Also, the rules were different for different competitions.

Another part of the judge’s ruling dealt with how the school counted team membership. The college had women’s teams for cross-country, indoor track, and outdoor track. They counted the athletes who participated in all three sports three times. The judge cried foul on that practice. Interestingly, the school dropped men’s outdoor track last year. How much do you want to bet they will drop the women’s track team next year? After all, you don’t get any credit for it. Now, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Ultimately, Title IX has become a form of affirmative action for women’s athletics. However, unlike affirmative action in college admissions, in the case of sports, quotas are not only encouraged, but required to meet the dictates of the law. Although it has unquestionably opened up more opportunities for women, it also leads to gaming the system and restricted opportunities for men. These are the results we would expect from any quota system.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Unemployment Benefits

I have friends among the ranks of the unemployed. I know one guy who has not had a full time job for almost two years now, and not for lack of trying. He has been to several out of state interviews, as well as numerous phone interviews, and he just can’t close the deal. This is probably largely due to his age (60+), but it also an indication of how tough the job market is these days.

However, I also know and have written of individuals who are working on the black market while continuing to draw unemployment (and food stamps, and welfare). In those circumstances, unemployment compensation is clearly a disincentive to taking on a regular job. So while I have some sympathy for those who struggling to find employment in today’s economy, I come down in favor of cutting off unemployment compensation after 75 weeks.

The Obama administration recently tried to push through another extension of unemployment benefits. It was stopped in the Senate by Republicans, concerned about the level of deficit spending. In the next six months, a number of the long term unemployed will lose their benefits as they expire.

I was reading the Freakonomics blog today, and I noticed an earlier post on this subject. As part of his post, one of the things Daniel Hamermesh said was
The original, and I believe continuing, purpose of unemployment insurance is to
maintain consumption of the unemployed—to prevent hardship.


I think the author has combined two different rationales in that sentence. There are two separate arguments for continuing unemployment benefits, and the Freakonomics author has folded them together. The easier argument to follow is to prevent hardship. It sucks to be unemployed. Having a little money coming in keeps food on the table and the lights turned on while looking for the next position. If you are living paycheck to paycheck, and then those paychecks are cut off, you are in deep trouble. With the current high level of unemployment, there are no jobs, so the need for the safety net is still there. In essence, this argument is “extend unemployment, because you could be next.”

The more complicated argument is that unemployment benefits maintain consumption. This is really a macroeconomic argument, as opposed to easing hardship at the microeconomic level of the household receiving benefits. The idea is that consumption drives demand, which drives production, which drives employment. Put another way, the argument is that if laid off people have no income, their spending drops to zero. When customers stop spending, businesses lay people off. If those laid off people also stop spending, the cycle will continue until no one is left standing. Basically, this boils down to “extend unemployment, or you will be next.”

After 18 months, however, both arguments begin to wear thin. Being an American citizen is a guarantee of certain inalienable rights. But it is not a guarantee of a standard of living, or even of a job. It is not the responsibility of the government to borrow money from the Chinese in order to send people checks in perpetuity. Enough is enough.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Disability Claims

We had one of our employees quit last week. She worked half a shift on Tuesday, left for a doctor’s appointment, then called in Tuesday afternoon to say she was quitting with no notice.

Here’s what was reported to me:

At the woman’s doctor appointment, she had reported symptoms so severe, that her doctor had declared that she should be on permanent total disability. He told her he would support her in her disability claim. The woman promptly went down to the local Social Security office and filed for disability. After filling out the paperwork, the first question the officials asked her was: are you still working? When she told them she was going to give two weeks notice, she was told not to give notice, as it would screw up her claim, by continuing to work after filing for disability status.

Additional information: The woman’s husband just started receiving his disability checks, after waiting almost two years for his claim to wend its way through the system. It usually takes at least a year for Social Security disability claims to be processed. However, it turns out that you get back pay: once your claim is approved, payments are made back to the date of first filing.

A few questions: Why are the bureaucrats at Social Security coaching applicants for disability? I would think that at best, part of their job would be root out attempts to defraud the taxpayers. At worst, they would maintain strict neutrality. If you want to go back to work after filling, who are they to advise against it. Let the chips fall where they may.

This leads me into my next question, and central point. If this woman was able to work two weeks notice, then how disabled could she be? For that matter, she worked a full shift Monday. I saw her do it. There was no evidence that I could see of a disabling medical condition. Not last week, or the week before, or the week before that. She never came to management and asked for an accommodation to any medical condition.

Here’s where I speculate: Our employee worked her job, supporting herself and her husband while his disability claim was processed. Now it’s his turn to support her. His back disability will support them while her claim is processed. Furthermore, now that he has learned the ins and outs of the system, he will be able to coach her while she goes for a second helping from the same pot.

This leads to one more question: How many people on disability have another member of their household also drawing disability? Once somebody in the house figures out how to get free money, how often does another member of the home decide to go for more free money?

Okay, that was two final questions.

Monday, July 5, 2010

A Favorable Omen

After the backyard barbeque and fireworks on the Fourth, I had a holiday today to recuperate. Later in the afternoon, I decided to go to the gym and try and work off some of the bratwurst and baked beans.

Walking up to the entrance of the gym, I noticed a small pile of change sitting on one of the platforms holding the faux columns that frame the entry. Three quarters, two dimes, and four pennies. Thinking that it could be some kind of trap, I restrained myself from grabbing the money on my way in the door.

After finishing my workout, I saw that the money was still there when I came out. Well, you don't have to tell me more than twice about free money before I go and see for myself. Half expecting some kind of hidden camera stunt to materialize, I snatched up the coins and pocketed them.

No one jumped out and accused me of stealing their money. So far, so good. Not only that, but as I walked across the parking lot, I spotted more change: a quarter here, a nickel there, a couple more pennies. My mama not having raised no fool for a son, I pocketed them as well.

Due to the long weekend, the coming week is going to be a short week at work. And now I'm up $1.31. Is this going to be a great week, or what?