The trial never ends

I decided to try to take a break from thinking of Peak Oil and resource depletion issues. So, I decided to watch an old episode of Star Trek. In the episode I was watching, a member of a race of ultimately powerful beings, the "Q", decided to test the main character of the program to see if he was worthy of continued existence. At the end of the trial, in the episode "All Good Things", the main character "Capt. Picard" found he managed to not only save his ship and crew but all of humanity as well. At the end, the dialog shows us some life lessons that i suspect apply to us all.

Picard: "I sincerely hope this is the last time I find myself here". (Talking to "Q" at the trial site, after successfully passing his latest challenge)

Q: "You just don't get it do you. Weren't you listening? The trial never ends! We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons...For one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That's the exploration that awaits you. Not charting stars and studying nebulae but charting the unknown possibilities of existence..."

It really put my daily (and future) challenges due to Peak Oil into perspective. The trials(s) never really do end do they? Even if such tests aren't administered by an ultimately powerful being, we each encounter hundreds of choices each day. From crossing a street to choosing a good breakfast, they have eventual consequences through time that may ultimately ensure our continued existence or our destruction. This happens on the dullest of days or during days full of obvious survival challenges. So, each day is important. Not just for the choices it brings but for being a step towards occasionally being put in a position to make important choices about our existence.

Budget Buster

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I finally thought I figured it out.  I stabilized my rent by getting a relatively small house with a fixed rate mortgage. (which also means small property taxes). That made my monthly housing costs average around $500/mo. plus upkeep.  I reduced my transport costs by taking the bus to work.  My heating bills stay low by turning my home down to 50F during the winter and I've converted to CFL lights.  I also garden in the summer.  To keep the water bills down, I take showers at the health club (inconvenient, but it keeps me fit and does save money). When I'm home, I walk or bike virtually everywhere.  One nice side effect is that I'm loosing weight.   I gave up CATV and a home phone years ago. For my mobile phone and Internet (required for my job) I'm relying on cellular service.   Until recently, I even managed to save a bit.  Not enough for retirement but enough for an occasional emergency.

That is, until I signed up for health insurance.  The good news was that I got it.  However, the bad news was that it was a budget buster. In spite of making roughly 1/3 more per hour from last year, my budget would not balance!   So, I decided to look at why.  It was really simple.  My healthcare premiums exceed what I would pay for a nice car or a mortgage payment for a much larger house.  For this, I get the chance of not going absolutely broke if I get hurt. Unfortunately, I'm not alone in my struggle to stay in the middle class.  If you are struggling too and wondering why, you may want to look at this video that puts some of these changes into perspective.

The coming collapse of the middle class

An alternative way of doing business

There seems no alternative to cash....or is there? Depending on who you pay tax to, it may be possible to either pay taxes with items or at worst sell items for cash. It may be possible to barter for payment of taxes. The principle is based on this article which showed how one individual turned one red paperclip into a house through a series of creative trades. Now, the article is not to show that you simply need a drawer full of paperclips to solve your financial needs. Rather, it's to show how it may be possible to buy and sell items until there may be an item the local government needs that could be used as payment in leu of taxes.

Bartering isn't about living without working or even sponging off the government. Rather, it is a way of directly participating in the economy. Although there are significant problems with keeping the government out of transactions, bartering can still be remarkably profitable and efficient.

As a thought experiment, I had the idea of comparing a bartering operation (or one that uses cash in small non-traceable units of currency) versus setting up a static business location that processes all it's transactions tracked with the help of a bank. Here are just some of the costs the bartering operation could evade.

• Income tax (Federal, State and sometimes local)
• Sales tax
• Business license or permits
• Mandatory insurance (workers comp, unemployment, other liability insurances)
• Employer's share of social security
• Employer provided benefits such as health care plans
• Credit card transaction fees and commercial bank fees
• Cost increases for various services due to paying "business rates" rather than "consumer rates".
• Cost of accounting in time/money for simply complying with U.S. tax laws.

The last item, in my opinion, is perhaps the highest cost. It's not the money collected. Rather, it’s the cost of compliance. The simple fact is, when the cost of evasion becomes lower than the cost of compliance then individuals and businesses start changing over into System-D economic systems or Gift Economies.

So, in my opinion, if Federal and State governments want to realistically look at restoring their economy by restoring their tax revenues, they need to look at reducing the cost of compliance for micro businesses. For example, State and Federal governments may want to offer an alternative simple "safe haven" tax on gross receipts. Then, as the new business becomes more successful and can afford more complexity, the business owners could pick a later year to start itemizing using the current rules. Once a business is large enough to hire enough employees to handle the complex rules. Finally, it might be able to provide lots of employment and then evade many of those pesky taxes as these large businesses did.  However, income tax, sales tax and other fees from employees usually makes up for lost corporate taxes. Why do you think politicians want jobs, jobs, jobs!

But isn’t there another way? Do towns and cities always need to resort to corporate giveaways just to make their budgets work?  How about encouraging residents to form micro businesses instead?

Here's a practical micro-business idea. Encourage land owners to host flea markets. Each person pays a flat rate to the land owner for retail space for the day. Plot prices would be posted so Each plot renter can decide if selling stuff for a fee is worth their while. If they do, they rent a plot for a day. The retail space vendor then pays a share of the rental fee to sales tax people. The vendors who do this would not need to keep track of sales taxes (or even income tax). Just turn in (or mail) a check for the days receipts. Audits would be easy - just count spaces & multiply by a percentage of plot price. If a vendor charges too little for each plot, the vendor and taxman miss out on profit and tax revenue. Charge too much, they both miss out due to lack of spaces being sold. Charge just right, and a thriving market can happen.

Lessons learned from "The Colonly"

I'm not usually a fan of "reality" shows but I am making an exception for the Discovery Channel series "The Colony". Usually, I find "reality shows" are either incredibly staged or simply boring. The series "The Colony" fits more into the "staged" category. The participants were given the scenario that they were experiencing the downfall of civilization due to a viral plague and were provided a temporary sanctuary in a former factory. There, they were given some supplies, tools, materials and an opportunity to try to not only survive but rebuild a piece of civilization.

Although the show had several do it yourself tricks to solving problems the first season reminded me of the 80's series, the "A-Team." In that series the heros were usually "trapped" somewhere that just happened to be a fully stocked machine shop. They would happen to have enough time, knowledge and materials to build something impressive such as an armored car that they would use to defeat bad guys with. In spite of the first season looking like a giant Harbor Freight machine tool commercial, there were some useful lessons to be learned. For example, a sand-charcoal-boiling water purification is a neat trick (just don't forget to boil the water). The emphasis on water systems also had another surprise for me. I knew the importance of health when it came to drinking water and showers in addition to a wastewater system. However, it looks like a pedal powered washing machine could be a surprisingly important device for anti-septic practices too. The projects of building a spark-gap radio, Tesla coil and wood gassifier truck were a bit far fetched but the projects kept the show interesting. The observations by the "experts" on social interactions were useful too.

In my opinion, the biggest problem was the existence but non-interaction with the camera people. For example, it was a bit hard to convince the viewer of a stealthy night action with a guy trailing behind with a big-ole camera light on! That problem might have been overcome with more static placed cameras. Then again, the cinema photography might start resembling the extremely boring "big brother" series. What might have been interesting would have been if cameras were used like the series "Survivorman". That is, the participants would manage their own cameras. Then again, it might then lead to many of the truly interesting scenes being lost. I can imagine the dialog during a crisis scene... "Hey, stop F***ing with your camera and help me fight!"

Second, the simulation assumed an apparent non-existence of working guns. The only people who had guns were some trading nomads who could have easily taken everything the group had. None of the rogues had guns but did have lots of fuel for running noisy motorcycles. Of course, just one bad guy with a working firearm on either side would have distorted the social dynamic sufficiently to make every participant simply fortify in their respective buildings. That's where the boring part comes in. Laying siege to a place may take weeks with no real action.

It's also rather depressing that the participants decided that fighting, scavenging then finally fleeing were the winning criteria. It would have been much more interesting to develop secure localized production of something and restore a piece of a local economy. Instead, in both seasons, the emphasis seemed to be to simply fortify a camp, fight some neighbors then build an "escape" vehicle to go somewhere else. Such a strategy might work in a very small disaster. However, that's no way to go about rebuilding civilization!

I do give kudos to the director who realized this and decided to show a brief scene at the very end of the second season to dispel the idea that fleeing is always the best option. The last scene was where the survivors make it to their destination on their home built vehicle only to find - more desperate hungry people! In fact, I was surprised that there was little debate about the validity of a radio transmission which claimed lots of food, utilities and other survivors. That kind of transmission could easily have been a trap set by another survivor group!

However, even with it's faults, I think the series is worth a watch. It has  numerous observations about human nature under various situations along with some technical tips. While it's no instruction video, it's a good jump point to investigating possible methods, procedures and devices that might be handy in a disaster (hint: try the solutions in a non-crisis situation BEFORE you assume they are practical). If nothing else, the series will probably make you not wish for a crisis at all and try harder to maintain the civilization you have now!