Category: Rev. Joe Dirt’s Ramblings

The unsolicited, unreasoned, uninformed, unapologetic opinions of Rev. Joe Dirt

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Social Security cost of living bump

”I heard a cynical comment to the recent announcement of a 5.9% cost of living adjustment to Social Security benefits, “Oh that is just Biden attempting to buy votes!

Just a few bits of data for grinding the old mental gears on:

  1. The current US monthly inflation rate is running north of 5%. If that continues the COLA will be mostly wiped out by inflationary pressures. The consumer price index is in the same ballpark. I’ve not researched it, but I do not believe past COLAs have kept up with inflation.
  2. A recent study found that 40% of Americans are living solely on Social Security. Forbes, among others, disputes this study as being inaccurate and biased (for my part, I always assume Forbes has a conservative agenda to push).  Whatever the real number is, there are a fair number of our fellow citizens solely reliant on SS benefits for their daily bread.
  3. Pension — Less than one-third (31%) of Americans are retiring with a defined benefit pension plan today. For those who do retire with a pension plan, the median annual pension benefit is $9,262 for a private pension, $22,172 for a federal government pension, and $24,592 for a railroad pension.
  4. The average 401(k) balance for a 65 year old is $216, 720, but the median amount is $64,548. By definition, the implication is that 50% of this age group has less than $64,548 in these types of plans. At 65 you have a good chance of living another 15 or 20 years…not a lot of savings for that time frame.
  5. They talk about the 3 pillars of retirement: Social Security, a defined benefit plan (pension) and savings, 401(k) etc. Most of us are sitting on 1 or 2 legged stools.
  6. The average Social Security benefit was $1,543 per month in January 2021. The maximum possible Social Security benefit for someone who retires at full retirement age is $3,148 in 2021. The average amount works out to $18,516 a year.  A 5.9 % bump works out to $91 a month.  I am reasonably sure the commenter would think he was living in poverty at twice or even thrice the average annual amount.
  7. Purely anecdotal, but when I was in college I did a survey for the Department of Transportation about the need for public transportation in under-served areas. The area I surveyed happened to have a high percentage of retirees. One of the questions on the survey was about income.  Of course, people will almost always lie about two things, money and sex  However, many of these folks were very open about giving me their income information (I did not ask about their sex lives… that would not have been professional).   It was very scary what some folks were trying to live on, many of them solely dependent on a SS check.  I vowed then to work towards having a retirement not solely dependent on SS.

Continue reading “Social Security cost of living bump”

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Rev. Joe Uncovers an International Conspiracy

Señora and I are friends with a couple, Harry and Susan, who live a little north of Chicago.  A few weeks ago they drove down to visit their son in Springfield, IL, and afterwards they passed a couple days in the St. Louis area to visit with us and Susan’s sister.  We had dinner with them one night on our patio and dinner the next night at her sister’s house.  After dinner each night we passed many agreeable hours on our patio gabbing and partaking of water and sunlight that nature had graciously turned into the pleasant and pleasing beverage called wine.

On the night we ate dinner at our house we were having a bit of a problem with flies.  I started talking about wanting to get one of those guns that shoots salt in order to hunt down flies.  A week or so after their visit, there arrived an unexpected package Continue reading “Rev. Joe Uncovers an International Conspiracy”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #3,935

yeah I know you did not ask!

I’m frequently perplexed as to whether the human race is advancing or not.  One area where we seem to be going backwards is in written communications.  There are a few reasons for this, but big ones are platforms such as Twitter that only allow 256 – up from 128 –characters per posting and texting.  Both promote the use of abbrvs. and acronyms, LOL. They also encourage the use of emojis, those ubiquitous smiley faces and other such small cartoons used as shortcuts for emotional content.

My text app has recently exploded with various emojis and other small images.  I type in beer and a picture of a mug of beer appears. I type in disrespectful and a scowling, purplish face appears, and so many more.

Pretty soon we will eliminate all cascades of letters symbolizing various concepts in favor of the new hieroglyphics.   King Tut and his Egyptian cohorts would be so proud.

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Pockets

I took The Wee Dog, Princess Lily, for a stroll tonight a little after dark-thirty. Being the middle of September, the evenings are beginning to get a little nippy, so  I grabbed a light jacket that I had not had on in a while.  As Lily and I were strolling down the sidewalk I stuck both my hands in the pockets of the jacket and discovered some items there in.  In the right pocket was the small plastic bag familiar to all urban dog owners, colloquially referred to as poop bags.  In the left pocket I found a paper mask that has become so fashionable and controversial during this pandemic.  As is my wont, I begin to reflect on these items as I walked.

The poop bag was a reminder to me to never say never, as I had more than once, emphatically stated that I would never pick up dog feces, using it as one of my arguments as why we did not need a dog.  However, if you have a dog in an urban / suburban environment it is only good manners to clean up your dog’s doings. When I was still working Continue reading “Pockets”

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Before I was born

I was speaking with one of my Spanish tutors, Micaela, this morning.  Mica lives in a small jungle town in Ecuador, but she has a good internet connection.  She is around 30 and an excellent conversationalist. We been working together for more than 2 years and have a friendly relationship.  For my part, I always enjoy our hour together every couple weeks, and she seems to do so also.

I sent her a few pictures of Cannon Beach in Oregon, then asked her is she remembered the movie Goonies, it being an extremely popular movie in its day, and having scenes in the movie set at Cannon Beach. Even though American movies and television programs are very popular there, she did not remember this movie .

I sent her a link to the IMDB page for Goonies. After looking at the page, she said, “Oh that movie was made in 1985 – before I was born!”

Grumble, grumble, gripe, gripe… got to love this getting old…the human race marches on.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #5,834

yeah I know you did not ask!

Watching TV this weekend while visiting a friend in Mississippi there were a brazilian advertisements for personal injury lawyers.  When you look up the meaning of ambulance chaser the phrase personal injury lawyer is a prominent part of the definition.  I began to wonder does anyone go to law school planning on being a personal injury lawyer? It seems me like such a cynical line of work, it is hard to imagine starting their education of law with such an outlook.

And so it goes.