THE REVEAL

Tom and I had certainly not foreseen that this would happen so soon in our lives - we expected a good 10 years before major health issues might occur.  We lived a healthy lifestyle and had no medical issues.  We had, however, spent time discussing things like quality of life and how far we would or would not allow medical intervention for each other.

I served as his advocate and was respected by the medical staff in that role.  His mental capacity was compromised and he had trouble speaking on and off during his hospitalization.  When he was lucid and could communicate well, he had many things he felt strongly about telling me.  He was extremely focused on his work, he made sure his clients had been taken care of.  He repeatedly told me about financial stuff like passwords and when bills were due that he handled. Even when he was delirious or sleepy, he insisted on holding his phone and having his blue tooth in his ear - during the nights I would wake up to him talking away as if he was conducting business.

It was clear to the family that in the last days he was asking for our help, asking to be let go. Things had deteriorated so significantly that much of his day was spent undergoing care that was painful and intrusive and not creating any gains.  We were all in agreement about stopping treatment and the staff handled the end very well with great respect and consideration.  He knew we were all there and the last word he said was "love".

The entire family retreated to our house to sleep.  In the morning we started making lists of things that needed to be done - divided it up and got to work.  We are a family of "doers".  Each of us in our own state of shock/grief/bewilderment we set about our tasks.  As the day went on, it became clear that there was a big problem.  I knew that I would not be able to afford the big house we had just rented, but the financial situation was significantly more dire than I had ever imagined. 

He would be very angry that I am even revealing this to others, but I think it is very important not to gloss over things - not just because this is the grim reality of my life now, but because it should serve as a warning.  I am not one of those old fashioned women who left everything up to my spouse.  I knew we had tax debt because I signed the taxes and payment plans every year.  I argued with him about his refusal to pay his quarterly estimated taxes as a self employed person.  He always argued back that if he had bad months back to back he might not be able to pay the rent or his bills to keep his practice going.  I know he lived in constant stress about his business month to month. 

Going through the finances, notifying creditors of his death, determining what accounts had to be paid or closed was significantly aided by the fact that he had created a comprehensive list with all his accounts and passwords.  What going through that revealed was gut wrenching.  Long story short (sorry, I guess this is not so short) he had massive consumer debt in his name that I did not know about and he had gotten behind on the tax payment plans and the IRS was after us. Big time.

Not only is finding I would have to deal with all this another kick in the gut, the kids were all exposed to this information and, quite frankly, we are all really pissed off about it.  Yes, he had no idea he was going to get sick and die.  Yes, he clearly was upset and obsessed with this throughout his illness and confinement in the hospital. Yes, he was trying to shield me with the belief he was somehow going to get it taken care of over time - but he didn't end up with time. 

I feel such pain knowing how worried he was all during his illness, he knew this hammer was out there and if he didn't survive it was going to come down on me. 

On the other hand - REALLY?  Keeping all this from me for years? Not being honest?  Pretending like we could actually purchase a house again?  Agreeing I could retire?

This reveal was only the beginning - much more to follow.

TAX DAY



Remember this?  His money is offshore, too.

 Tax day news:  Looks like the rich are sheltering up to $32 TRILLION DOLLARS in cash in the British Virgin Islands... but now we'll be finding out who they are since a leak has revealed their names and emails.


Now this is not just Americans, the list includes tax cheats across the world. It adds up to almost half the world's GDP.  It is staggering to think what could be done if that  money wasn't hidden away but paid in taxes where they are owed.  Poverty and disease eradicated, education elevated and made available to all. Just think of all the good that could be accomplished if there wasn't so much greed.  And don't get me started on all the alleged charitable donations these wealthy people say they contribute - most of them are write-offs which don't come out of their pockets secret bank accounts.

I say that as someone who paid over $50,000. in taxes this year.  Not exactly small change for anyone and a huge burden for us.  We know that there are all kids of ways we could lower our tax bill but that would involve misrepresentations, otherwise known as cheating. A risk we are not interested in taking but more importantly it involves moral turpitude, which we are not interested in, either!

FRIDAY FAST ONES

  1.)  Still no resolution to the car accident in mid-December.  AAA insurance is certainly a sorry-ass company.  I submitted a bunch of evidence and photos and the agent said he would guarantee I would be at less than 50% fault.  Then nothing.  I think he must have gotten in trouble from the higher ups because weeks later I am talking with some creep who says if both cars are moving it is 50/50 fault - no matter what the actual facts of the situation are.  Period.

So now we have to go into arbitration.  I am determined not to cave in just to get my car fixed.

2.) Does anyone else say that they are going to see all the Oscar movies before the show and then year after year manage to see few, if any, of them? I saw The Help. That's it.

3. )  My memory lapses are causing me some consternation this week.  I have been changing e-mail addresses (forgetting passwords), doing the taxes (forgetting how to download the previous year's information into Turbo Tax), trying to use work time for productive things (passwords again), transferring a credit card balance (I tore the place apart trying to remember where I hid the credit cards I don't use.)

I am going to start putting everything into a little notebook so I can find what I need when I need it.  If we are burgled, so be it!

4.) Love having my days to do things.  Hate that there are now so many solicitors calling all day.  One woke me up this morning - 8am!  (I know that sounds late, but I don't tend to get to sleep until 1 or so.)

5.)  Just finished another good book - The Night Circus - for those who enjoy the magic and mystical in their reading.   

I HEART WARREN BUFFETT

Buffett, who is estimated to be worth more than $47 billion, called on Congress to commit to "shared sacrifice" and raise taxes on people earning more than $1 million. Buffett said the rich are "coddled" by Congress "as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species."


The billionaire said he paid about $7 million in payroll and income taxes last year. That is about 17.4 percent of his taxable income, a lower proportion than any of the other 20 people in his office whose tax burdens range from 33 percent to 41 percent, he said.


"My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It's time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice," Buffett wrote.

Read more of his comments here.

FRIDAY FAST ONES

 1.)  The last 3 watermelons I purchased have been pretty good - one of them was actually excellent.  Over the years I have developed a method for picking watermelons which serves me pretty well - until it doesn't and I am stuck with 10 pounds of yuck.  I was told by someone years ago to look for very dark lines and bubbles in any "stretch marks" or abrasions on the skin of the melon - it is supposed to be an indication of a higher sugar content.

My camera isn't good for close-ups - but you can kind of see the dark bubbles...

How do you pick your watermelon?

2.)  I have been searching out new recipes for my semi-veggie new dietary approach.  A couple of them require pumpkin.  Tried to buy pumpkin in the summer?  Even TJ's considers it seasonal!  I finally found some in a locally owned store and commended them for carrying it.  I also sent an e-mail to Raley's and Safeway to complain.  The checkers said they know people look for it all the time, yet the corporate guys seem to think they know better! 

3.)  Even though the California state budget has been in tatters for years the legislature allowed the additional 1% sales tax we have been paying (making the sales tax 9.75% where I live)  to lapse.  The old chestnut is that people will buy more if the sales tax is lower.  Ridiculous.  We are all accustomed to paying it and I don't know anyone who doesn't buy something because they don't want to pay an additional 1% (except for a car.)

I can't wait until we all wake up and realize that those little percentages equal road and bridge repairs, breakfast for hungry kids, medical care, police and fire departments, teachers, grants for low income college students, state parks and so much more.  What is worse is that polls showed residents of CA were fine with continuing the tax but the legislature let it go anyway...

4.)  So far the critters who ate all my tomatoes right off the vines the last couple of summers have not found the 2 pots of them I have planted up on my deck!  I might have home grown tomatoes to eat this year - if I didn't jinx myself by mentioning this.

5.) My "weekend" isn't until Monday - but you all enjoy the next couple of lovely summer days off!

DEMS FAIL TO KEEP PROMISES AGAIN

 I have been reading a bit on the analysis of the reasons the Democrats in Congress did not push ahead to keep the promises to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy when hey had their chances earlier on during the Obama administration.  As usual, it was a failure of intelligent, gutsy leadership.  Instead of taking advantage of both their majority and the backing and support of the majority of the American people to let the tax cuts for the wealthy expire, they decided to put off the discussion until after the mid-term elections for fear they would be painted by the FauxFox News brush as anti-American tax and spend liberals and not get re-elected.  Well, they didn't get re-elected anyway and now they have lost their advantage, nerve and opportunity to bring billions of dollars into our coffers.

Now that the Republicans have refused to extend unemployment benefits ( and are threatening not to ratify the START treaty with Russia to prevent nuclear proliferation) they have the Dems over a lame duck barrel.  We all know that those benefits must be extended.  We can't have an unemployment rate of 10% and 8 million jobs gone and no safety net for those living inside the nightmare of those statistics.

Obama, who was overwhelmingly elected on a platform to extend only the tax cuts for income below $250,000, maintains that the estimated $670 billion difference between his plan and the Republicans' is unaffordable given our long-term budget deficit. He also notes that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has found lower tax rates to be the least effective economic stimulus proposal of 11 ideas it considered.  But that will not stop this proposal from being passed.

Makes me wish there was a viable alternative to being a registered Democrat.

BACK TO SCHOOL THOUGHTS

When my kids started school back in the early '90's, back to school shopping used to mean a binder and pencils,a couple of glue sticks, some markers.  As the years went on the lists got more involved, there were more requests for reams of paper, pens, books. There were more and more fees, not just for sports but for science labs, computer use.  They stopped running buses and needed parents to volunteer to help in the lunch room and playground..

Fund raising events for special items like a new PA system and big screen for the multipurpose room  evolved into paying the salary for a music teacher.  By then the sports cost a lot of money and many of the coaches were no longer on staff, but volunteer parents.  Now that my youngest is a Senior in High School - well, it has all gone to hell, hasn't it?  Now we are not only paying  more and more fees, there are fewer and fewer programs available.  I have sent Kleenex to teachers but now some schools are asking parents to sent in cleaning supplies and even toilet paper!!

This brings up two interesting things I have read today, first:

Nan at All the Good Names Were Taken wrote a very thought provoking post about the way that things have changed around in 150 years from the US being the brains and the Chinese the brawn to build the railroads - to the current plan for the Chinese to be the brains behind the high speed rail here in California and the locals to be the laborers.  She quotes from an essay by Robert Borosage in a July issue of Progressive Populist on the funding crises in public education, with class sizes rocketing, hours of instruction being cut, and teachers being furloughed:

"This surely is how great nations decline. Like Rome and Britain before us, Washington now chooses to police the world, even as it cuts back the education of the nation's most vulnerable children. We fight two wars on the other side of the world, spend more defending South Korea from North Korea than the South Koreans do, increase military spending already nearly as great as the rest of the world combined while saying we can't afford vital investments at home.



In April, an iconic article in the New York Times recorded the cost of this folly. The Times reported from Beijing that the Chinese were preparing to bid to build the bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The director of high-speed rail in China, Zheng Jian, noted that 'We are the most advanced in many fields, and we are willing to share with the US.'



High-speed rail requires financing, very sophisticated technology and advanced engineering - and China is ready to provide the cash, the technology and the high end engineers and skilled technicians. They would hire Americans to assemble the parts and lay the track."
 
And then an article on Salon about what they call the creeping of  backdoor privatization. 
 
Privatization meant transferring responsibility for entire programs or functions to the private sector. But with the drastic budget cuts that states have been forced to make, responsibility for public services and programs is literally being forced into private hands one roll of toilet paper at a time. We've entered the era of backdoor privatization...What is new, though, is the extent to which families are being asked to contribute basic items. This may be too much to ask of parents who are struggling to pay their own bills -- especially since they’ve already paid taxes that are supposed to support the public school system.
 
 And of course we know it isn't only the schools.  It is our police and fire departments.  Some cities are turning off the street lights, reducing services for seniors, closing parks and cutting bus services.  At what point will Americans wake up and realize that their tax dollars are not always "wasted" by politicians?  That a return of the tax on the wealthiest will benefit us all (because the tax cuts sure didn't.) 
 
And look around folks - who is really paying the price of these reduced services?  The wealthiest send their kids to private schools.  Do you think their kids are toting a bag of toilet paper to school with them? They can afford private transportation, security, medicine and whatever they need. 
 
The best-case scenario is that the impact of these cuts will help people understand just what their tax dollars are paying for and spur greater consciousness about the relationship between public spending and public goods.
 
I am terribly afraid that we may be looking at the worst case scenario because we do not, and our politicians do not, have the will to speak the truth and make the hard and unpopular choices.