a (belated) Christmas story
RWL #307
Belated Merry Christmas from the Last Homely House! I know, it’s Wednesday and even when I’m late getting this newsletter out, it’s usually out by Sunday night. So as you might guess, things did not go as planned this past weekend. Christmas is a big deal in our house. We spend weeks planning for the holiday and have a whole set of traditions that we do together as a family. All of them were upended by the fact that we lost power on Friday afternoon because of the wind storm that hit the Northeast and did not get power back until mid-morning on Sunday (Christmas day).
Losing power is kind of cozy and fun for the first couple of hours. We lit a fire in the wood stove and brought out the candles (pic above). Then as the hours ticked by, I pulled out the generator and brought us back on line with limited power. I spent Friday night on the couch in the den waking up to add logs to the fire and listening making sure the generator kept running.
Our oil furnace requires electricity to keep burning. We are also on a well, and the well pump is also electric, so no electricity means no water. On Saturday the generator mysteriously stopped working, so no heat and no water going into Christmas Eve. Eventually we took frozen items out of the freezer in laundry baskets and put them outside on the porch, since it was about 12 degrees outside. The stuff in the refrigerator we mostly wrote off. Much of it would have been ruined by getting frozen, and by that time the temperature had been rising for hours. I’d like to tell you we remained philosophical through the whole thing, but as the sun set and we knew all our preparations were falling through, we were pretty let down.
Christmas morning we started with our normal present opening, with the fire keeping the house warm enough. Then I ran out to find a convenience store and bought eggs and milk and bacon. I thanked the woman who was running the register, feeling guilty that I was one of the people she had to pull a shift to take care of. But thanks to her I was able to make breakfast on the side burner of our gas grill. It was still about 12 degrees outside, but at least it wasn’t snowing.
One doesn’t experience disappointment if one doesn’t have expectations. As I understand it, that is one of the tenets of Buddhism. In the end, we were safe, reasonably warm, fed, and together. We all had lots of nice presents under the tree. It wasn’t the Christmas we had been dreaming of, but it could have been much worse. We talked about the poor people of Ukraine and how they have been suffering from Russian viciousness, trying to keep our experience in perspective. There was no malignant actor intending us harm, just bad luck and bad timing.
We were unwrapping presents when we realized the power was back on because the microwave suddenly beeped. We all dropped what we were doing and plugged in the Christmas tree. It was a moment of genuine joy to see it light up.
Like I said, I would like to tell you we remained philosophical throughout, and were able to continue to appreciate the good fortune we have been blessed with. But that wouldn’t be entirely true. But is not entirely untrue. We all experienced disappointment and expressed it in different ways and to different degrees. We also all tried to be resilient and solve the problems we were facing and take care of each other to make it as good as it could be. It will be a holiday we remember, unlike most that simply pass pleasantly and unremarkably. Much of life’s richness comes from variance, not constancy. Some stress is good, even if we wouldn’t have chosen it. Stress, in manageable doses, makes us stronger. This was not the holiday we would have chosen, but I think as it passes into memory and ultimately into story, it will become part of our family lore. And that will make us stronger.
Ok, that’s it from me. As usual, willing good for all of you, have a great rest of 2022 and I present you with the links!
Read
What: Our World in Data, Who do we spend time with across our lifetime?
https://ourworldindata.org/time-with-others-lifetime
Why: Great info-graphic and discussion about who we spend our time with, through our lifecycle. It is striking how much time older people spend alone. The article offers that being alone is not the same thing as loneliness, but nevertheless, the data is surprising.
Here is their report on self-reported feelings of loneliness (only Western countries participating, but the range is interesting): https://ourworldindata.org/lonely-not-alone
**
What: The Economics Daily: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Average hourly private industry employer compensation costs were $39.61 in September 2022
Why: Another interesting info-graphic. Average cash compensation was $27.93 and benefits were $11.68, which makes benefits almost 30% of total compensation. When people talk about wage stagnation, they don’t typically include benefits. However, it is important to include benefits because from an employer standpoint, wages and benefits all amount to the same, and they are relatively indifferent between paying wages and paying benefits. Rising healthcare costs increase the benefits side of total compensation, but those rising costs don’t usually feel like an increase in compensation to the employee.
Another important point is how irrelevant minimum wage laws are to the vast majority of the population. Even at $15/hour, minimum wage wouldn’t have any effect on most workers.
**
Watch
What: Zeihan on Geopolitics, Demographics Part 1: Understanding the Basics (8 min)
Why: Peter Zeihan has had more impact on my thinking this year than anyone else. I guess you can tell because I keep sharing his videos. This mini-series he is doing on Demographics is great. He doesn’t talk about the looming entitlements crisis in the US, but I’ve been thinking about it for 30 years. It’s part of what motivated me to start saving so much when I was in my twenties - I don’t trust that Social Security will be around when I do eventually retire, or if it is, I don’t trust it will be worth much. And that is all based on demographics. Demographics are a slow moving train that are easy to predict and the impacts are relatively easy to predict as well. But because demographic forces move glacially slow in political time, politicians are able to largely ignore them. Regardless, we have been squabbling over nickels while sitting on a train track and the train is chugging steadily towards us and we refuse to acknowledge that it is coming.
Here’s the US demographics in 2020 according to the US Census Bureau:
( see the data yourself here: https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/idb/#/country?COUNTRY_YEAR=2022&COUNTRY_YR_ANIM=2022 )
This is bad because the Social Security system is based on a pyramid, and we are getting toward a column. Worse is Europe - take for example Italy:
As with COVID, Italy shows us what is coming to America. We’re just a little behind them. Here we have progress towards a reverse pyramid (and it is coming to America, just a few decades down the line). This will cause the fat welfare states of Europe to collapse because there will be no one left to fund the social security Ponzi scheme. The terrible part about this is it was completely predictable. We’ve known this was coming for decades, and yet we haven’t been telling people that Social Security won’t be there and that it is unsustainable because of demographics. It’s not a matter of caring or not caring. It’s simple nose counting. I’d like to say it’s “science”, as in “Follow the science!”, but it’s not even that complicated.
**
Listen
What: The World Next Week, The World Next Year: What to Watch in 2023 (46 min)
Why: From the thoughtful people at the Council on Foreign Relations. Some hopeful, some scary.
**
What: National Review, The Editors podcast, The Causes of Western Greatness (69 min)
https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/the-editors/episode-504-the-causes-of-western-greatness/
Why: A fun romp from “who is better, Plato or Aristotle?” to the present and beyond.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
If you’re looking for a searchable archive, you can see my draft folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jwGLdjsb1WKtgH_2C-_3VvrYCtqLplFO?usp=sharing
Finally, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://markbonica.substack.com/welcome
See you next week!
Mark
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” – Pablo Picaso