Paying Taxes

My first political thought had to do with taxes. I remember suddenly realizing that if people wanted something in their town, they would pay for it with "taxes." The image in my head was of a village that wanted a statue over a fountain, and the people would each have to pay some amount to pay for the statue. Much later I realized that fire departments, roads, and schools were paid for by taxes, and that no one wanted to pay into the kitty and wanted to keep their money themselves.


I did my taxes by hand on binder paper with a pencil until 2002, even though for years I always had at least two if not three or four W2s. It was simple math in those days, with the standard deductions, and I found it kind of fun to do. Later in my financial aid life I learned how to read tax returns doing income verifications, and until I had to figure the value of a business that was kind of fun too. I even trained other people on it!


When I've had to write a check to the IRS, I've often been tempted to write in the memo line what I want my money to pay for. "Head Start," I've imagined writing several years in a row, or five years ago, "Armor for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan." I've imagined drawing a circle/slash through "ADM." The check to the State Franchise Board would say "Education" and "Libraries."


I wonder what wouldn't get funded if people could say where they wanted their taxes to go. My first guess is legislators' salaries. What would you pay for?

Food Bank Bailout

To see this editorial cartoon by Signe Wilkinson, go here. This is what it looks like at my food bank.


If you want to find a food bank in your community, do an internet search for "food bank" and the name of your city, county, state, or region. If you're in the US, you can go to the website for Feeding America, formerly America's Second Harvest.

Surprised?

Is it an October Surprise if no one pays any attention?


I've heard only two short stories about the US attack on the Syria/Iraq border to kill an Al Qaeda operative. One of the volunteers mentioned it on Monday and the next day I heard a short piece about Syria wanting restitution for the people who were killed.


I know it's cynical to focus on the effect of deaths of people on the other side of the world on the US Presidential election, but the October Surprise is practically conventional wisdom. We haven't had one this year - I thought it was going to be the results of the investigation into Gov. Palin's possible abuse of power, but it wasn't. However, the very overwhelming fact of the economy's tanking is shadowing every other issue Americans might care about. So much for any surprises.

Well, Wells.

Wells Fargo is purchasing Wachovia.


Last week, I sent the following email to Wells via the customer service email link:

I'm one of your customers and not a stockholder. In fact, I'm a mortgagee - Wells owns our house, and that's about all the business we do with Wells (we "bank" at a credit union). We took a regular mortgage without an ARM and received the interest rate we deserved for our income and our credit rating. We are also paying our mortgage every month.

I am really unhappy that Wells is making a move toward purchasing Wachovia. I imagine that WF is doing this for financial reasons, perhaps only part of which is to receive a portion of the bailout (which, incidentally, is a bad deal for the taxpayers, like myself). I don't like it. I want WF to stay as far away from this mortgage mess as possible, and not take on one of the lenders that got caught in the subprime mortgage or credit default mess.

As a customer, I feel I have the right to make my unhappiness about this known. I do not expect you to do this but I'm asking anyway: Please back out of the deal.

I got an email back, but it said nothing:

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and suggestions with us. Please be assured that we take customer feedback very seriously. Your views are important and are always welcome. We forwarded your suggestion(s) to the appropriate personnel who are always interested in improving customer service and satisfaction.

At Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, we are dedicated to providing the highest quality service to our valued customers. We appreciate your business and look forward to the opportunity to exceed your servicing expectations in the future.

Thank you again for contacting Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. If you have further questions, please reply to this message or contact a loan-servicing representative by calling (866) 234-8271 Monday through Friday between 6 AM and 10 PM CT and on Saturdays between 8 AM and 2 PM CT.

Check This Out

Do you wish you could get a bailout? Or wish you could decide where that money would go? How about for teachers? The Food Stamp and School Lunch Programs? Police Officers? New homes? To pay off student loans? To pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Look at what $700 billion dollars would buy.

Ten Kitchen Essentials

The San Francisco Chronicle's Food Section has a story this week titled Ten Kitchen Essentials. This list "goes beyond [the] basics like kosher salt and panko breadcrumbs" listed here and includes the following:

Mirin (Japanese rice wine);
Dark chocolate (at least 62% cocoa);
Fish sauce (the Southeast Asian clear sauce);
Quinoa;
Salted capers;
Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce;
Garbanzo beans (I prefer to call them chickpeas);
High quality honey;
Whole grain mustard;
Fancy tuna in olive oil


It happens that quinoa and chickpeas are a standard item in my pantry, piled on shelves in the garage, as well. I personally prefer rice to quinoa, but Zirpu likes quinoa's higher protein and lower glycemic index better, so we have both. It's also important to be able to whip up a batch of hummus anytime, and I have been known to use them as part of a whole non-chickpea-focused recipe as well. We like mustards here, and the kinds of mustards we buy - garlic mustard, jalapeno mustard, Jim Beam mustard - tend to be made with whole grain mustard. But we also keep the usual yellow on hand. I use fish sauce so slowly that it becomes part of the pantry after I buy a bottle for the few tablespoons I need for a Chinese recipe from my wok book.


The rest of this intrigues me. These are pantry items? I think of pantry items as the things you could make a meal of, not with. It strikes me that perhaps this list was mistitled as "essentials' and should have been called something like "Ten Versatile Pantry Items" and even then not including cream of mushroom soup is pretty questionable). Kitchen Essentials in my kitchen, in no particular order:

Olive oil
Quinoa
Mustard of some type
Chickpeas
Onions
Garlic
Tuna (not packed in oil)
Pasta (low carb, soy or whole wheat)
Barbecue sauce (because I have several slow cookers)
Flour

The top ten things we pack the boxes with at the food bank are:
Canned fruit;
Canned vegetables;
Canned corn;
Canned soup;
Canned tomatoes;
Canned chili, stew, or ravioli;
Tuna;
Pasta;
Rice;
Cereal


These are what I consider the "essential" essentials, the best guess for feeding folks from nonperishable goods for the best price (several commenters in the original article mentioned the cost of the Chron's list).


Now, please excuse me while I make biscuits out of flour and bacon grease to go with the slow-cooked ribs with barbecue sauce.

Maybe it's the economy...

There's an ad playing on the radio these days and I have heard it twice. It turns out to be about something other than what I expect it to be about.


A man's voice says:

Just three carats (that "ding" noise that goes with an image of a shine)...
Just a ski weekend (sound of wind and snow)...
Just a little retail therapy (ca-ching!)...
Just a toy (motorcycle revving)...
Just a hobby (horses' hooves pounding)...

And so on. While he's reading the list I'm expecting the end of the ad to be woman's voice talking about "using your credit card wisely" or advertising credit counseling services, or even a bank advising potential customers that they'll be helped with financial advising. I'm all prepared to hear a supportive but lecturing voice about spending money wisely.


At the end of the ad, the man's voice says, "Just a millionaire." Another man's voice continues with a line about the California Lottery.

Main Street and $700 Billion

I was listening to Fresh Air on my way home yesterday and heard this interview with Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times.





I haven't really understood what happened and how, and I had no idea why the bailout is a good thing for taxpayers. I heard a line (in a story regarding AIG), which was "Profits are privatized, but losses are socialized" and other than that I didn't have a sense of how we got here. Morgenson explained it in language and analogies I understood. If you want to understand it too, check out the interview.

Real People Really Affected

Yesterday a woman came into the food bank practically hyperventilating because she was so upset. She had just worked out a budget for herself and was saying to her teenage daughter that she just didn't know how she was going to be able to do this.


It became clear after a few minutes that she hadn't been paid in 76 days because she provides care for five children and the state hasn't been sending out checks since July. I was happy to tell her that a budget had been passed by the state legislature and that the Governator had said he would sign it. She was incredibly relieved to know that finally some money would be coming in.

I did not mention that there are no winners in this budget, only losers, and that we'll be right back here again next year, unless the economy miraculously improves by then. When I talked to her I didn't know that he was scheduled to sign it next week. I wonder when she is going to get a check, and if it will be everything owed her since the end of July, or in chunks?

Around The Budget In Eighty Days

So, some work finally got done in Sacramento!


The Legislature put together a budget of cuts and magic and the Governator signed it. Schools can hire teachers and create smaller classes; hospitals, clinics, and residential care programs can pay the loans they took to keep themselves operating, childcare and adult care centers can keep kids and adults safe and supervised; and college students can get their state grants to pay for books and living expenses. In the meantime, no one got their wages reduced to $6.55 an hour because the lawsuit didn't get far enough along in the process.


I can't help thinking that a situation exactly like this - only ending two weeks earlier than this time around - is what got Gov. Grey Davis recalled and Arnold Schwarzenegger elected.

They're Our Employees

When June 30 came and went without a FY08-09 budget, the Governator proposed reducing state employees' wages to the federal minimum, which is $6.55/hour, with the difference to be paid after the budget was passed. The State Controller (who signs the checks) refused to comply, saying that temporarily reducing and then reinstating state workers' pay would be very difficult to do. Arnold sued.


Driving home while listening to the California Report on Arnold's proposal, I was thinking that really, the salaries of the legislators should be reduced to minimum wage. I thought that might help focus their minds. While looking up how much Cali state legislators get paid, I found this report, which shocked me. I wrote the following to my governor:

Dear Governor:

Will some of the 200,000 state employees whose wages are being reduced to $6.55 an hour include the legislators? Maybe then all parties will agree to focus on the issue until there is a solution, making one appear more quickly. I understand that you already decline your salary, or I would suggest that yours be reduced as well. If the lowest paid state employees' incomes are reduced, then those of the highest paid, including UC and CSU executives, state investment officers, and the legislature, should be as well.

I suggest that the salaries of those whose total is over $100,000 per year be reduced. Even reducing those incomes just by half would save a lot of money, and those people would still be able to buy milk and gasoline.

I then sent this email to my representative in Sacramento, asking her to note that my proposal would include each of them. I got a form email back thanking me for my interest in the budget and squarely blaming the Republicans' for the lack of a resolution.


They are 56 days late on a budget, and nothing is getting done in Sac because the Governator has refused to sign anything into law until the state has a budget. In the meantime, twenty-five legislators have left for Denver to attend the made-for-TV scripted spectacle that is the Democratic National Convention, just as, I'm sure, the other 15 will head out for Minneapolis-St. Paul next week.


I'm outraged. These people work for us! I want to yell at them, "Get back to work NOW!"

The Vision

For the last week, the sun has been the color of sunset most of the day, the light has been orange, and the air has smelled like smoke. We don't live that close to one of the many fires in northern California, but there are so many of them that the smoke is everywhere. For the firefighters' sakes I'm happy there's no wind, but a wind would blow the smoke away.


Yesterday morning a big rig crashed through the median on 880 and hit a delivery truck and a flatbed truck and burst into flames. The truck had been going south on 880 but the wreck closed the highway northbound for hours - and when it reopened, it was only one lane. It took me almost three times as long to get home yesterday afternoon, though all but one of the southbound lanes were open. There's a CHP officer relating the story and video here (search for "I-880 fatal crash" in the video section on the left hand side).


When I went to the BART station to pick up Zirpu, I saw that Mission was really backed up. Mission is a state highway with three lanes in both directions and runs parallel to 880, but it's a local road with stoplights every mile or less. It took almost no time to get to the station, but the station itself was all backed up, since cars couldn't get out. To make a long story short, we were forced to turn the wrong way and took "the scenic route" through town - places we haven't even thought about since we were house-hunting. A round trip that usually takes 15 minutes took 45 minutes last night. Zirpu said, "You don't know how much traffic 880 takes until something like this happens."


I found the whole thing really depressing. I try not to think apocalyptically, but this was in life my vision of the beginning of the end: smoky, orange skies, and thousands upon thousands of cars idling in traffic.

Saint Stupid's Day Parade

Someday I will participate in this, though I can't imagine when I will ever work in SF again, or when I might have an April Fool's Day off.

Saint Stupid's Day Parade

It warms my little teenage hippie heart to know that people occasionally mock the single-minded pursuit of financial gain.

$4/gallon gasoline

They're talking about $4/gallon gas coming this spring. I've already seen gas stations with premium gas around $3.90 per gallon, and passed one the other day with Diesel #2 for $3.95/gallon. I live in California and I listen to national news, so when I hear about average gas prices I add at least thirty cents to the figure quoted. I noticed in Colorado and in Texas that their medium-octane gas is the same as our low-octane gas. As big as this state is, as famous as this state is for cars (can you hear me, SoCal?), we are also famous for our concerns about the environment.


I heard about a study that indicates that the high gas prices seem to be finally affecting people's driving behavior. They're buying less gasoline, so the studiers think folks are carpooling and using public transit a little more, and arranging errands in clumps to avoid driving back and forth across town. The radio story included a piece about two people who started carpooling their 100 miles to work when they realized how much they were spending on gasoline.


I did the math. Where is my tipping point? I'm one of the fortunate ones with a relatively short commute without toll roads, free parking at work, and a hybrid vehicle. Yesterday my drive home was almost 20 miles, and the car averaged 50 mpg on those miles. Taking BART from the station near home round trip would cost $6.20 and would involve a 30 minute walk through a tunnel next to the traffic in the morning and the evening. While the air's not as bad in the Posey Tube as I expected, the noise is unbelievable. I'm sure repeated exposure to both would damage my lungs and my hearing.


[Warning: I'm slightly math impaired so these figures are not guaranteed, but I think they are close enough for this purpose]

Let's just do some simple rounding and say that I use about 3/5th of a gallon each day to get to and from work. At $4/gallon, I'd be spending about $2.20's worth of gas for my round trip. I think that means that gasoline would have to be $12/gallon for BART (at current fares) to be more cost efficient, and I'd still have the 60 minutes of walking through a dirty and noisy tunnel to cost out.


If I got 12 mpg instead, like the guys in the radio piece with an SUV and a minivan respectively, I'd need about three gallons a day for my trip to and from work. If I worked in San Francisco, with a much longer commute, a bridge toll, and astronomical parking fees, I would take BART at $8/day (and I have). The Killer Lady drives to SF for work, but she needs her car for her job, and No drives to work in SF because he gets off work after BART stops running. Also, both have free parking (and No usually drives KT's Prius).


I know that these figures don't include wear and tear on the vehicle and the insurance. Maybe I break even there by being a partial carpooler: I drop Zirpu at a BART station near the house every morning and most evenings we drive home together from a station a couple miles from where I work.


I suspect that this could sound like a rationalization, but isn't math a rational science?

Field Trip

The Food Bank Director and I went to the Alameda County Community Food Bank last week. I'd never been there and I wanted to see it. It's a huge place, with a walk-in freezer almost the size of our house (part of which you can see in the upper left corner of the photo below), and a small section set up with shelves where we "shop" that is probably 30 x 40 feet, minuscule in relation to the size of the whole warehouse. There's a desk where you sign in and they give you a cart, Then you walk up and down the aisles until you have everything you can get. The weight of your stuff is recorded for billing purposes and you go out and pack your truck or van and leave.


The difference between our food bank and the ACCFB is kind of like the difference between a mom-and-pop grocery store and a grocery distributor. We get our stuff there and then the clients come to us to get their stuff. We got ten cases of tomato sauce, ten of diced tomatoes, ten of cranberry sauce (for next November), and five of pork and beans. We also got 100 pounds of sweet potatoes, 100 pounds of carrot stubs, and 50 pounds of onions. The ACCFB charges by the pound for the canned goods, and the produce is free. Unlike a grocery distributor, the choices are limited, as are the amounts (sometimes). You get what they have when they have it because you don't know when they will have it again. We have a lot of tomato products because that's pretty much all the ACCFB has had for several months, but come September they may not have any so we should get it now - and do.


All cans, jars, and packaged food like crackers and cereal have codes printed on them which mean various things. The date printed on the can is often a "best by" date (sometimes it is a packing date). After the "best by" date has passed, the food inside the can is generally good for up to 24 months (depending on what's inside the can), though the nutritional content may be compromised (particularly in the case of vitamins). When we get cans and packages donated by the community, we look at each one to see if it's worth putting up on the table for packing. We all throw stuff out if it's more than two years old, and sometimes before that if the packaging looks iffy or (obviously) of the can is bulging or leaking. The oldest can we've received since I've been at the food bank had a "best by" date of June 1995. I think it came from someone who brought us the contents of their parent's kitchen when the parent died or moved into supportive housing. We all wondered at the age of the can and then someone pitched it in the trash.


Carrying all these cans around reinforces my weight training - and my need for weight training!

It's Raining Again

Vernonia's flooding again.


This is the small town where YaYaWOT and her family were living when I started hanging out with them. I met them about four months after the big flood of 1996, one they were calling a "hundred year flood" because the water was so high.


It rained ten inches in one day, a lot even for western Oregon. The Is lives on a hill and her house is dry, but the National Guard has been evacuating people by Zodiac raft and by helicopter. It seems like it's only been in the last couple of years that Vernonia has recovered from the '96 flood, and when I moved there V-town, a logging community, was feeling the spotted owl effect.


Now it's under water again. Here's to our friends and neighbors in Vernowhere.

Something's Wrong

It's summer. People should be picking up seasonal work at fairs or in yards and houses, or traveling.


We served 46 households today. That is about twice what I would expect it to be for the first day of the month, and higher than the number we generally serve. If it were a Thursday or Friday in the last week of the month, sure, we would probably serve over forty families. But on the first day? A lot of the households who came through today were large ones; I would say at least a dozen households of five or more people. We also signed up about ten families or individuals.


One of my volunteers pointed out that on the first day of the month, often the mail is late because there's so much of it, and people can't wait.


In general it seems like our numbers are going up. We are now getting people from parts of town which we have not historically served. The FBD thinks that could be related to the whole mortgage mess that's happening all over the country: All those five year interest-only loans are starting to require principal payments and people are struggling. It seems to me also that people who would otherwise be working, aren't. I wonder what is going on.


I don't know who all these people are, but they are keeping us jumping!