A Site to Remember

     I have no comment about what's going on in Washington right now, because, really -- what can you say? It's a manufactured crisis, and however it's solved it does nothing to address our very real problems involving the debt, health care, energy, unemployment, the environment, education -- not to mention issues overseas from Afghanistan to Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. Hopefully, we (meaning Congress and the President) can begin to approach all these issues with more maturity, responsibility and effectiveness than this stupid debt-ceiling limit.

     So on another, perhaps more useful and delightful note, I thought I'd pass on a link to this new social-networking site called proust.com. It's a place "for you and your loved ones to share and pass on stories" to capture the "life stories and thoughts of the people you love -- to discover who they really are."

     The idea is for you and your family to visit the site, which offers questions for you to answer, or to ask your loved ones, that will encourage people to recall what's important in their lives. It has various prompts, such as, Dad, if you could go back to one age, what would it be and why? Or, Grandma, describe something mischievous you did as a child. Or,what advice would you give to your ten-year-old self? Or, you can ask questions of your own, different questions for different members of the family, or the same question for everyone to answer. Proust.com saves the answers and stories and photos on your own page, and eventually you can collect them into a personal memoir, or family history, or record of a group of people at a special time in life.

     The site, which does require registration, also offers various chapters to get you started, such as "Remember the Time," and "High School Years" and "First Loves." There's also a chapter called "The Proust Questionnaire" with 33 Proustian questions about attitudes and likes and dislikes. Your answers can be kept private or shared with the public.

     Of course the site is designed with older people in mind, so they (we) can share memories, advice and stories with family and friends. According to The Week magazine, co-founder Tom Cortese said the idea came to him after watching his grandmother battle dementia. "It was just this process of seeing memories go by the wayside," he said. "There were so many stories I wish I knew about her life."

     The site is named after French novelist Marcel Proust, author of the multivolume, 3000-plus-page novel about time and memory In Search of Lost Time, also known as Remembrance of Things Past.

     So go check out the site. And hopefully, no one will be moved to write about where they were in the summer of 2011 when the economy collapsed because of a stalemate over the debt ceiling and the Dow Jones Average dropped a thousand points and nobody got their Social Security checks for three months running.

Ground Under Repair -- Update

     Update.  Okay, this is what I came up with for my new design. Er ... it's not all that colorful, is it? It's not exactly what I was going for, but it's kinda what I wanted, and I just ran out of time and patience diddling and doodling with the Blogger design template.

     The text simulates the kindle experience -- black on a gray background. That's not exactly what I was going for either, but I could not figure out how to get this text background any lighter, without changing the rest of the background. Meantime, I did make the print larger, with what I think is a cleaner typeface, and I retained the "map" background, which I wanted to do for the visual pun on my title. (Get it? Taking "sightings" using a map?) And, finally, the whole page is lighter and brighter and a little more cheerful, which is something I wanted.

     Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new design. I'll use this for a while and then ... hey, it's fun to change! I'll do it again in six months or so when I get bored with this one.



     I was getting sick of my rust-colored blog and so I started fooling around with the colors and the design of the page . . . and now I've made a holy mess!

     So if this blog seems at first glance to be unfamiliar, or looks like something that just flew in from outer space, that's because I'm working on the redesign ... you know, just to spice things up, make everything look a little zippier and snazzier -- but I don't want to get too carried away and make things confusing and hard to follow.

     Of course, I started working on it at the end of the day. And then B wanted to go out to dinner. And I have plans for tomorrow. So for the next couple of days I'll be experimenting, before I settle on something.

     In the meantime, let me pass on this Sign of the Times:

     Advertisement seen in the window of my local health club:  "Politicians -- come in and get in shape for your next scandalous photo."

Borders -- R.I.P.

     The bookstore chain Borders is filing for bankruptcy and going out of business. Apparently, Bookspan, the private company that owns Book of the Month Club, Literary Guild an other book clubs, offered to buy the faltering chain, but the offer was so low that the owners of Borders decided they'd be better off just closing up shop and selling off their inventory.

     I don't know about you, but whenever I had a little time to kill, I used to like to mosey on over to Borders and spend a half hour or 45 minutes browsing through their racks of books, checking out the bestsellers, flipping through the magazine stand. Sometimes I'd even buy a paperback, then get a cookie and cup of something at the snack bar, and sit down and read for a while.

     This is a great activity for retired people with some time on their hands, or for anyone who's not rushing through life. But I guess Borders has seen its day come and go.

My local Borders, in its last days

     I remember back in the 1970s, people were apoplectic because the big chain stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble were spreading out to cities and small towns across America and putting local independent bookstores out of business. I liked the local bookstores. They had character. The proprietor was often some crusty older woman who wasn't bashful about recommending the latest novel or political screed. She'd welcome you in the door with a smile, never try to rush you, and she'd be happy if you walked out the door with a $2.99 paperback or even a 50-cent used book. These storeowners liked to read, they identified with the authors, and they loved what they sold.

     I remember when my sister lived in Washington, DC. There was an old bookstore around the corner from where she lived, and she sometimes fantasized about quitting her high-stress but pointless job with the Federal government and buying the bookstore, envisioning herself sitting behind the counter, reading her favorite books, and making some money.

     Fortunately, she never took the leap. That bookstore closed a couple of years later -- put out of business by the new chain store down the street that was clean and well-organized and had a coffee bar, and brought in some famous authors to sign books.

     But, honestly, I liked the big bookstores, maybe even more than the independents. They never offered any used books, but you could still spend as long as you wanted roaming through the racks checking out this book and that. The new chains offered a bigger selection of books, as well as tapes and then CDs and DVDs. They also got the idea to put a coffee bar into the bookstores, and that added to the experience -- if you had the time.

     But then along came Walmart and BJs and Costco, which would sell bestsellers at 50 percent off the list price. Then came amazon.com, again offering discounts that the big chains either couldn't, or wouldn't, match. So I found myself, at least sometimes, roaming through Borders and noting a few books that looked interesting, then going home and ordering them from amazon -- and saving $20 or $30.

     Then, of course, along came the kindle and the nook, which made bookstores even more irrelevant. I got a kindle for my birthday two years ago and have bought a number of books electronically. It's so easy. You get whatever book you want, right away. It's relatively inexpensive. And you don't have to carry around a thick heavy tome when you're reading on the train or at the beach. Perfect for Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, for example, or the Lee Child mysteries I like to read.

     Young people probably don't even know what a bookstore is. They don't read many books. They spend their time playing video games, texting their friends, or maybe watching or reading short snipets from youtube. And young people who do read -- they think the kindle is for old people. They have an iPad or Android.

     Most young people don't appreciate the joy of browsing through a bookstore -- and they certainly don't have the time. But I still like to wander up and down the aisles, checking out the latest political books (I don't read the books, but I like to read the jacket copy, just to see what's going on). I like to peruse the history books that are often featured on a table, or the social & psychology books that give me an insight into the current zeitgeist of the country.

     Honestly, I feel a little guilty that I never spent as much money at Borders as I probably should have, considering how much time I spent there. It would have helped if they'd only offered a little better prices. But I will miss Borders. Now I will drive over to the nearest Barnes & Noble. The store's a little farther away. It's bigger, a little more warehouse-like. But they have plenty of books, and a nice coffee shop. I'll try to drop a few more dollars while I'm there, so they don't have to fold their tent, too.

     In the meantime, if you happen to have a Borders gift card that you got for your birthday or Christmas, you'd better hurry on down to spend it. The company said the liquidation sale is expected to be completed by September. And anyway, you might finally get a bargain. Borders is advertising discounts of "up to 40 percent off" regular prices.

Is Social Security In Your Future?

     When I tried to figure out when would be a good time for me to start taking Social Security, and then posted an entry on the topic, I was struck by how many people wondered if they would be getting any Social Security at all.

     Terry wondered if it'll still be around in 8 years when she's ready to retire, and Morrison sighed, "I just hope it's still there."

      Joanna Jenkins warned, "Cross your fingers that there will even be Social Security by the time you're able to collect." And JBO wrote, "Since I am in the 'you may lose it' category of 53, I have no idea when or if I will ever get any. I am pretty sure people my age will take it ASAP since they have been threatened to lose it."

     The worries are not without some justification. According to this report by the Social Security Board of Trustees, Social Security is already running a deficit. And largely because the number of beneficiaries will grow at "a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers," the Social Security Trust Fund reserves will be "exhausted in 2036." 

     Of course, predicting the financial future is even more fraught with error than predicting the weather. The year 2036 is a quarter of a century from now. As a comparison, think about the world of 25 years ago -- 1986, when there was no internet, no email, no cellphones, when the Berlin Wall was still up, and so were the Twin Towers and nobody had heard of Osama bin Laden and Ronald Reagan was president. A lot can happen between now and 2036.

     All I know is that throughout my career, watching a pretty sizable deduction come out of my paycheck every two weeks, I assumed that Social Security would be there when I finally got to retire. I did not assume Social Security would cover all my expenses -- nobody I knew ever assumed that -- but we did believe it would at least be there as a base income if things went wrong for us, or as a nice supplement to our retirement income if things went well for us.

     But now, it seems, people are beginning to wonder if Social Security will survive at all. Many Baby Boomers intend to start grabbing payments as soon as they can -- not because they're greedy, but because they're afraid that Social Security as we know it is going away, and they want to get back at least a small part of their investment before the whole thing goes down.

     It's a shame, really, that people are losing faith in Social Security, just as they are losing faith in Wall Street, the American economy, American business, their elected representatives, their governments in the state house and Washington ... in everything, really.

     But does it make sense? Just how vulnerable is Social Security? What are the chances that a 60 year old, or a 50 year old, will never see a Social Security check? What are the chances that our sons and daughters, now in their 20s and 30s, will see a Social Security payment?

    In last Sunday's New York Times Richard H. Thaler, an economics professor at University of Chicago, wrote in "Getting the Most Out of Social Security" that most people would benefit by delaying when they start receiving Social Security payments. He agrees with my own analysis in "Did you Miss Your Social Security Check?"  It's a safe, guaranteed and inflation-protected annuity, he avers, an investment that more retirees should use to provide them with a stream of income.

     He argues that Social Security is inflation protected, fairly priced and "because it is run by the government is reasonably safe." Then he goes on to say, "Claiming that Social Security benefits are safe may sound naive, but my view is actually quite cynical. I believe that as long as the elderly continue to vote in large numbers, no Congress will renege on promised payouts for those already eligible to receive benefits."

     On the other hand, Alicia Munnell pointed out in a Smart Money article called "3 Ways Your Social Security Payments Are Already Being Cut" there are existing policies in place that will mean fewer and smaller payments to future retirees. One is the increase in the retirement age, slated to go up to 67 for people born after 1960. A second "pay cut" comes from the fact that Medicare premiums, which are deducted from Social Security payments, are increasing faster than benefits, resulting in less Social Security "take-home" pay. And finally, Social Security payments are taxed under the personal income tax for people above certain income levels, and the levels are not indexed to inflation. The result:  in 2002 the median earner did not pay any tax on Social Security benefits, but by 2030, under current law, the median earner will pay tax on half the benefits.

     And Catey Hill, just last week at Smart Money, reported in "Coming Soon: Smaller Raises for Seniors" that Congress is considering a new way for Social Security to adjust benefits for inflation, resulting in -- you guessed it -- a method that produces lower estimates of inflation and thus smaller increases  in benefits. "Under the new calculations," she concludes, "after ten years, the average 73 year old would get a check that's about 3 percent smaller than he would get under the old calculations."

     Putting aside our varying opinions about what we feel should happen to Social Security, what seems most likely to happen to Social Security is that:

     1)  Social Security benefits will be there for future retirees. As Richard Thaler suggests, as long as the elderly continue to vote, Congress will be very circumspect about curbing benefits. Remember how far President George Bush got with his plan to replace Social Security with a voluntary retirement plan? Never got out of the starting gate. The Tea Partyers? They make a lot of noise, but they're nowhere near a majority. It seems pretty clear that Social Security will be around, in something very close to its present form, at least for anyone age 50 or over.

     2)  However, there are plenty of people -- Senators, Congressmen, government officials, economists -- who want to chip away at Social Security payouts as the great mass of Baby Boomers begins to apply for benefits and money starts flowing out of the Trust Fund at a faster and faster rate. They've already begun to trim wherever they can, and they'll continue to cut around the edges. They'll do it quietly, hoping that retirees won't notice too much. And they'll make more dramatic cuts for future beneficiaries, because younger people won't complain as much -- and don't vote as much.

     Who knows what natural disaster, economic collapse, or international conflict will drastically change our lives? But the most likely scenario seems pretty clear:

     Social Security will be with us for the foreseeable future. For 25 years at least, and probably more. Maybe even for our sons and daughters now in their 20s and 30s. But over time the benefits will slowly lose their purchasing power, one way or another, as they become a smaller and smaller part of our retirement income.

     Or, as we knew all along ... Social Security will be there as a bare-bones base income if things go wrong for us, or as a somewhat-less-significant supplement to our retirement income if things go okay.

   {An edited version of this article was first published on Technorati.}

Best Songs of Summer

     According to the astronomical calendar, summer started on June 21. But according to the cultural calendar, it began on Memorial Day, and runs through Labor Day -- 14 weeks of picnics, barbecues, beach parties, gardening and outdoor sports, all accompanied by a blaring radio, or stereo ... or iPod.

     That puts us, right now, in the middle of July, smack dab in the middle of summer. And so I went in search of the very best summer songs ... Baby Boomer style, of course. For those of you with some time on your hands, here are the links; plus, my two favorites down at the bottom. Did I miss one?

# 14.  "In the Summertime" by Jerry Mungo -- a funky beat from a British singer, circa 1970.

# 13.  "Summertime Blues" by Eddie Cochran -- a top hit from way back in 1958.

# 12.  "Summer Nights" with Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta -- from the 1978 movie Grease.

# 11.  "Summer in the City" by the Lovin' Spoonful -- I had a friend in high school who loved this song, played it all the time. Annoyed the hell out of me. But it's still a classic.

#10.   "Surf City" by Jan and Dean -- co-written by Jan Berry and Brian Wilson, topped the charts in 1963.

# 9.   "Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer" from Nat King Cole -- how can you not sing along with this goofy song from 1963.

# 8.   "Summer Wind" from Frank Sinatra -- with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, it became a classic for the Chairman of the Board.

# 7.  "Under the Boardwalk" from The Drifters -- in 1964, "on a blanket with my baby's where I'll be..."

# 6.   "Somebody to Love" by Jefferson Airplane, a touchstone for the 1967 Summer of Love.

# 5.   "California Girls" by the Beach Boys -- top hit from their 1965 album Summer Days.

# 4.   "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams -- a hit from 1985, but an ode of summers of yore.

# 3.   "School's Out" by Alice Cooper -- the 1972 rant captures the sheer thrill of getting out of school for the summer, a feeling none of us will ever forget, no matter how old we are. This song also energized the popular 1998 Cameron Diaz comedy There's Something About Mary.

# 2.   "Stand By Me," from Ben E. King -- the Number 1 song of 1961, and theme song of the 1986 movie about four young friends searching for a dead body in the summer of 1959, starring Will Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell and Kiefer Sutherland as the "bad boy" older kid.

# 1.   "Summertime" from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess -- It's been recorded by Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and other greats, but my favorite version was rasped out by Janis Joplin, circa 1969.