Two Ex-es Can Live as Cheaply as One

(Image from Freepik)

High housing costs have forced some divorcing couples to continue to live together:

Behind the uneasy arrangement is the housing market. Mortgage rates are over 7% and average home prices have hit record highs. This means more couples can’t afford to leave their home with its less than 3% mortgage interest rates and set up two different households.

Renting isn’t always an option either given that rents have risen more than 9% over the last two years.

Estranged couples stuck together are trying to create boundaries. Husband on the second floor. Wife on the first. They assign his and her cupboards in the kitchen, schedule laundry time and text whereabouts as needed. One woman locks her bedroom door and keeps her supply of batteries and toilet paper in her closet.

Many don’t tell colleagues about the set up because it seems unthinkable or they are embarrassed. They try to maintain civility for the kids and hold tight until they can afford to buy, rent and furnish two homes.

Couples used to remain together because of the social stigma of divorce.

Today the norm is to move out, "move on," and cut ties as quickly as possible.

If the couple still lives under the me roof, their acquaintances may correctly surmise that they don't have the funds to split up.

The new morality: failure in a marriage is no longer embarrassing, but it is shameful if one doesn't have the money to move out. The world has changed, not necessarily for the better.

Gratitude Weekend

It was the day of turkey reckoning. As we had noted previously, turkey was not on the menu for Thursday. However, the ingredients for a traditional Thanksgiving meal had been sitting in the refrigerator for nearly a week. Roasting the bird had been deferred, not cancelled.

And so it was that the turkey entered the oven at 8 a.m. It was cooked at 225 degrees Fahrenheit and required minimal oversight. We had dinner at 7.

There was no need to say again our gratitude for the big things that we were thankful for. Today, the end of gratitude weekend, we just gave thanks for the turkey (and gravy and stuffing and cranberry sauce and...) and the company gathered 'round.

Stonestown: Turning the Corner

The parking lot was filled, but Stonestown
wasn't crowded on the day after Black Friday

Stonestown Galleria has become a regular stop for us on the way back from appointments on the west side of San Francisco. The mall has very few empty storefronts and has become a hangout for young urban Asians:

Lately, on San Francisco’s west side, where I [reporter Harry Mok] live now, Stonestown Galleria is in a mini-boom, with new stores and restaurants replacing many of those that closed before or didn’t survive the pandemic.

While there will be Christmas decorations and Santa Claus, Black Friday at Stonestown will also have a decidedly Asian vibe, especially the food options.

On a recent visit, I noticed that seven of the 10 restaurants in the food court were Asian, along with a few others around the mall. And, as I was walking around, it dawned on me that nearly everyone there was Asian American.

One sign that retail has turned the corner: we used to go to particular restaurants or stores, but now the Mall itself has become the destination.

Dead Giveaway

We take a break from the busy-ness and stress of Thanksgiving week to admire the handiwork of thieves:

Two people were arrested early Friday morning for allegedly driving a stolen vehicle outfitted with a handwritten license plate, Benicia police said...

A check of the Kia’s vehicle identification number indicated the car had been reported stolen out of Alameda County, according to Benicia Police Lt. Kenneth Hart.

The driver, identified as 38-year-old Angel Rachiene Bolton from San Jose, was arrested for allegedly possessing the stolen vehicle and for allegedly possessing a narcotics pipe located inside the car, Hart said.

The passenger, a 30-year-old man from Alameda whom police did not immediately identify, was also allegedly in possession of a narcotics pipe and was booked for possessing a controlled substance. Hart added that the passenger had three out-of-county warrants out for his arrest.

I wonder what gave the police a hint that something was amiss. It could have been the hand-drawn alphanumeric characters or the lack of colors on the "plate" and the month and year "stickers." For me it would have been the duct tape, the dead giveaway that something is not professionally done.

Thanksgiving, 2023

(WSJ photo)

Like many others, we're not making a turkey today, but this is ridiculous:

[Kimberly Darling] forgoes the familiar turkey in favor of an alligator she traps on one of her many hunting expeditions, then she brines, smokes and wraps it in bacon before serving her guests.

“People walk in and they’re like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s a literal alligator. What did we sign up for?’” she says.

But the mild taste and tender texture can’t be beat, adds Darling, a 40-year-old nurse anesthetist who lives near Chicago.

I retract my statement. This is not ridiculous. This is America. What a country.

Remembering That Day

On the 60th anniversary of his assassination, I am rerunning this post I wrote 20 years ago:

Mrs. Matthews calmly told us the news, but her normally severe demeanor seemed strained. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. The class grew quiet. In the face of tragedy we tried to act like adults, who we thought would not cry or shout or otherwise carry on.

After an interminable wait, school finally let out, and kids got into their buses or waiting cars. My ride wouldn’t come for another hour so I wandered around the empty halls. I thought about going to the main office to call Mom, but the phone was only to be used in the direst emergency, like the time I got sick in Mrs. Millar’s fourth grade class and my father had to take off work to pick me up. I borrowed a book from the library and went across the street to wait for my uncle. I opened the book but didn’t see the pages.

These days we say we are “shocked” or “stunned” by an occurrence, when, in truth, our imagination, combined with knowledge of actual horrors experienced over the past 40 years, has inoculated us against surprise. But those reactions are appropriate to this seminal event, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, that signaled the end of our childhood.

The entire week was quiet. No one felt like playing football, so games were cancelled. The churches were filled, just as they were a year earlier when we prayed that God would spare the world. It was a week of blackness--black suits, dresses, and veils filling our black-and-white TV sets and newspapers.

In 1960 my parents supported Richard Nixon, and, being an imitative child, so did I. But once JFK was elected, he became the President and had our unswerving allegiance. The world was extremely dangerous. As we learned in geography, Russia had the most land, China had the most people, and these colossi were united against us. And more and more were joining their fold: people in Africa, in South America, even in neighboring Mexico, were burning the flag (I remember when some burned the old flag with 48 stars: didn’t they know that Hawaii and Alaska had become States?). The map of the world that hung on the bedroom wall was bathed in red, the color of communism, while the blue part--the United States, Canada, Western Europe, and Japan—seemed puny in comparison.

At school we would practice ducking under our desks in case the bombs started falling. People say now that these instructions were a big joke, but I didn’t know anyone who laughed. Life and Look magazines ran page after page on the devastation wrought by atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I studied the huge mushroom cloud produced by the thousand-times more powerful hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll. Today children have nightmares about the Twin Towers falling; we worried about towers vaporizing…..everywhere.

President Kennedy also contended with many problems on the Mainland, as we called the contiguous 48 states. (I don’t want to give the impression that in my tender years I was a news junkie: it was primarily to advance my vocabulary that I read the grown-ups’ newspapers, the morning Advertiser and evening Star-Bulletin.) Good news was rare. Powerful labor unions, such as the Teamsters and steelworkers, went on strike and shut down much of the country. Troops had to be sent to Alabama because Governor Wallace wouldn’t let black kids go to school. The powerful Mafia was a big problem on the East Coast, and Robert Kennedy, the callow Attorney General, seemed inadequate to the task. As the Untouchables TV series vividly showed, you needed men with machine guns to take them on, and the President’s younger brother did not have the authoritative air of Elliott Ness.

The troubles came to a head in October, 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis. The fear in adults was palpable, and I became convinced, after a few days of excruciating tension, that the world was going to be destroyed. Every night I concentrated with special fervor on the final line of the children’s prayer, “if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take”. When the Russian ships turned around, and Mr. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba, I felt the exultation of the patient who is given a second chance, and President Kennedy was my doctor.

He is remembered for his grace, his wit, and his handsome family. But I remember most of all the contrast between the joyful heights of Thanksgiving, 1962 and the somber depths of Thanksgiving, 1963. He saved us all, and then he was gone.
© 2003 Stephen Yuen

If China and the U.S. are Both Against These People, They Must Be bad

As of March: My nine most recent invitations from LinkedIn

We posted about "pig butchering" earlier:

Scammers involved in this practice, which started as early as 2017 in China, create fake profiles on social media sites or dating sites, connect with victims, build virtual and often romantic relationships, and eventually persuade the victims to transfer over their assets. The scammers themselves came up with the name “pig butchering,” comparing the intensive and long-term process of gaining victims’ trust to raising a pig for slaughter.

I have never connected with any of the attractive Asian women who send me invitations on LinkedIn. Nevertheless, I still get 1-2 requests to connect every week. It's annoying.

China, which was suspected of being one of the sources of the scam, has cracked down on pig butchering:

In recent months, China has unleashed its most aggressive effort to crack down on the proliferation of the scam mills, reaching beyond its territory and netting thousands of people in mass arrests. Its main target is a notorious stretch of its border with Myanmar controlled by narcotics traffickers and warlords.

Five suspects, flanked by Myanmar police,
were turned over to China. (WSJ)

For decades, frontier fiefdoms such as those in Myanmar have been havens for gambling and trafficking of everything from drugs to wildlife to people. Now, they are dens for pig-butchering operations.

The scammers operate out of secretive, dystopian compounds, many of which are run by Chinese fugitives who fled their country to places where it was easier to flout the law. They cheat Chinese citizens out of billions of dollars each year, as well as victims across the globe. The U.S. Treasury Department in September warned Americans about the scams...

For Beijing, it is a significant source of embarrassment that Chinese criminals are at the center of scams ensnaring people the world over, said Jason Tower, Myanmar country director for the United States Institute of Peace, an independent research organization founded by the U.S. Congress that specializes in conflict mitigation.

China is “quite sensitive to the narratives that could potentially emerge,” he said. “These are largely Chinese crime groups which China, for years, did very little to check.”

Although the crooks will regroup and move on to other locales, this effort will save many thousands of people from being scammed in the immediate future.

The Foster City Levee

The levee (under construction in 2021) obscures the Bay from the ground level.

The view of the Bay is nice from the top (Chron)

The $90 million Foster City levee is complete. The Chronicle encourages Bay Area residents to see it, because something like our levee is in their future:

Welcome to Foster City’s new improved levee, fortified by plates of corrugated steel and roughly 6 feet taller than the prior edition. It’s also a rock-solid reminder that as the Bay Area prepares for the likelihood of sea level rise along its shorelines in coming decades, the result often won’t be pretty.

That’s why the $90 million, 6.2-mile project is worth a visit for anyone wondering what the future might hold — in this case, a glum wall with great public access. The original premise of Foster City, proximity to the water, has disappeared from sight where it should pull you close...

There’s a bleak simplicity to the levee, and its intent is clear — protection from whatever the bay and natural forces might dish out in decades to come. As an element in the landscape, though, the impression it leaves is multilayered.

Down on Beach Park Boulevard, what you see is what you get, a long ridge hiding any sense that water lies beyond.

The experience on top? Totally different.

The views of the bridge and bay are alluring, even if the tall thick concrete thwarts any visceral connection to the shoreline.

You can't walk from the path to the water any more

We've written before about the levee project to protect Foster City against "100-year floods." To recap, FEMA designated Foster City as a flood zone in 2014, meaning most homeowners would have to buy flood insurance costing $2,000-$3,000 per year or spend $279 per year to pay for the levee.

We won't know whether the levee was necessary until long after we're gone, but I can't complain. $90 million is a bargain compared to what San Francisco may have to spend.

Liberal Anglicanism: It's Not for Everyone

Pope Francis at the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 23.
He's the guy with the big chair (WSJ photo)

Religions don't survive long unless they provide answers to basic philosophical questions. Furthermore, the questions should not be limited to those that puzzled its original adherents. To endure centuries, even millennia, they must address the human condition broadly. The trick is to understand which principles are immutable and which are not.

Ontario priest Raymond de Souza laments that Pope Francis is overturning too many beliefs too quickly.

conversations veered off to consider whether Catholicism would do better as a facsimile of liberal Anglicanism: ordaining women, revising sexual morality, enhancing lay governance—and, of course, trying to arrest climate change.

Ouch. We Episcopalians felt that one.

Father de Souza wants more dogma and fewer questions.

The articulation of dogma—traditionally the work of Rome—doesn’t bind the soul as much as it frees it, in the same way that a martyr is free, already living beyond the world’s power. Such confidence and clarity have dissipated in Rome in recent years. Question marks litter the landscape; certainty appears to be the problem, not the solution. Without dogma, we’re left only with our own conclusions, which aren’t truths worth dying for and thus aren’t truths worth living for.

I personally like having the Catholic Church argue articulately for traditional Christian theology and practices. Such voices have been stilled in the Episcopal Church, and they shouldn't be excised from American Christianity entirely.

Haughty Insouciance

I've written about this phenomenon before:

After generations of protected status the ducks have lost all fear of humans. They sleep in large groups, not caring about our presence...The ducks waddle about, leaving their organic matter everywhere.

In the above photo the ducks stroll fearlessly on a road that snakes around condominiums. As I approached on foot, they looked at me with haughty insouciance but eventually backed away, quacking their displeasure.

Ducks seem to know that cars, slowed by speed bumps and 15MPH signs, will stop for them when they're on this particular road. They also know to stay away from the main avenue a few yards away, where the cars move at 40 MPH.

They've adopted to human environments better than some people have.

Reflections on Replacing a Lock

The old parts are held at the bottom.

One reason for calling in an outside professional (plumber, electrician, etc.) is that not only will he do projects right, but he will eliminate the possibility of damage from amateur attempts gone awry. If the home handyman knows his limitations, however, he can save money.

For example, last month the 30-year-old knob on the door to the garage stopped working. The task was to replace the knob and match the key to the deadbolt. The knob was Kwikset, which is the cheapest of the major brands. Home Depot had a $25 knob that would fit the opening but didn't quite match the look of the old knob and deadbolt. And the key would still have to be fitted.

The easiest and most expensive solution would be to summon a locksmith to replace and re-key the part for about $150. Instead, I took the old knob and latch to a locksmith in San Mateo. He had a same-model Kwikset in inventory and adjusted it to fit the old key. The total cost: $80.

I could affect a false frugality and say $70 saved here and there really adds up, but to be perfectly honest I hated spending $70 for being too lazy to take a few minutes to put in a lock. Self-knowledge may not always make one happy, but it can avoid disgruntlement.

Riskless Jab (for me)

COVID-19 immunization is completely covered by my health plan, so I got another booster earlier today.

I know that the vaccine's efficacy in questionable, but the mild side effects from experience only last 1-2 days. Even if there was a 1% chance it would prevent me from catching the virus, or just lessen its symptoms, it would be worth the trip to the clinic.

What I'm really fearful of is brain fog from long COVID. In my dotage the brain has become foggy enough already.

The U.S. and China Come to the Table

40 years after the "walk in the woods", Presidents Xi and
Biden walk around the Filoli Gardens in Woodside, CA (ABC)

When China adopted a hybrid version of capitalism, it was nearly a foregone conclusion that China would eventually become the world's dominant power. Although its per-capita GDP was "only" USD $13,000--a fraction of the United States' $75,000--China's GDP of $17.7 trillion was rapidly approaching the U.S.' $23.3 trillion in 2021. China was marching inexorably toward number one.

Not so fast. As Presidents Xi and Biden met today at nearby Filoli Gardens, China is struggling with a number of worrisome economic issues. [bold added]

China’s economy is beset by multiple challenges, from a deflating property bubble and unmanageable local government debts to slumping confidence and deflation. The U.S., meanwhile, has just recorded its strongest quarter in nearly two years while inflation subsides. China’s gross domestic product, which was 75% the size of the U.S.’s in 2021, had slipped to 64% in the third quarter, roughly where it was in 2017...

China’s growth, which averaged 10% a year from 1980 to 2012, was always bound to slow around now because of an aging population, less rural-to-urban migration and diminishing opportunities to catch up to wealthier countries.

But the slowdown has been sharper than expected. The World Bank now expects China’s annual growth in the next two years to average 4.5%, roughly a percentage point slower than it projected a decade ago. The International Monetary Fund sees growth averaging just 3.9% over the next five years...

During the global financial crisis of 2007-09 China launched a massive stimulus program aimed at infrastructure, housing and later, technology. Local governments and developers financed this investment by borrowing from banks and the Chinese public, using new financing vehicles to get around borrowing restrictions imposed by Beijing...

Whereas the U.S. has too few houses and infrastructure, China now has too much of both. Millions of apartments are vacant. Guizhou, a relatively poor province, is home to 23 of the world’s 100 highest bridges. High-speed railway track is growing more than twice as quickly as passengers, according to Rogoff and Yang.

Much of the debt to finance that investment, issued by developers and local governments to ordinary Chinese or Chinese banks, is in danger of default. The IMF estimates 30% of local government debt is nonviable. Collapsing revenue from land sales and business taxes have saddled local governments with yawning deficits. An August Rhodium report co-authored by Wright concluded that China has much less fiscal space than widely believed to finance industrial policy, defense and its Belt and Road Initiative of foreign infrastructure loans...

China’s declining population is a slow-moving problem that suddenly accelerated in the past two years. In 2017 the fertility rate, the number of children a woman could expect to bear over her lifetime, was around 1.6, below the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population...

Chinese authorities are ideologically opposed to boosting consumption, such as through more generous healthcare and retirement benefits, which would reduce the need to save. Meanwhile, Xi has worsened confidence through “a series of profound policy choices…that are now coming back to hobble the Chinese economy and its recovery,” said Barry Naughton, an expert on Chinese industrial policy at the University of California San Diego.

Starting in 2020, the Communist Party unleashed a regulatory crackdown on private businesses in online commerce, online education and gaming, ostensibly to clamp down on privacy and anticompetitive abuses but mostly to cement its control over the private sector.

Despite these recently surfaced weaknesses, China still has immense power, particularly in manufacturing. It can easily disrupt supply chains of major industries around the world if it so chooses. And China's quest to expand territory, most notably to annex Taiwan, will threaten political and economic stability for decades.

The interesting aspect of this civilizational contest between China and the West is that, for the first time in memory, time is not on China's side. Its aging, shrinking population will force China to turn inward, while immigration and open markets are likely to continue growth for the U.S. and its allies.

Of course, President Xi is aware of these demographic realities. The near-term danger is that he may be tempted to accelerate his expansionist plans before the West gets stronger and China gets weaker.

Let's hope that President Biden can offer him deals that will help the Chinese people and their economy while at the same time defusing the prospect of military conflict.

Social Security: Deferral Isn't for Everyone

(WSJ image)

Most popular financial literature recommends that Social Security recipients not claim early retirement benefits at 62 but wait until "full retirement" age between 66 and 67, depending on the year of birth. If possible, one should wait until 70 to maximize the monthly benefits.

Each year of deferral raises the payment by about 8%, which can amount to a substantial number if one lives a long life. After a discussion with family members, your humble pensioner filed for benefits at the age of 66.

Although I was confident that I would make it to at least 90 (justifying delaying benefits to 70), others weren't so sure. (My family is a barrel of laughs.)

The WSJ lists poor health and current cash flow shortfalls as two reasons to take Social Security earlier rather than later.

There is little sense in delaying if—because of health or genetics—you think there is a good chance that you’ll die relatively young. There also may be little sense to wait past full retirement age if survivor benefits aren’t necessary for a spouse...

Early payouts can help when there are shortfalls between income and expenses...

Indeed, while delaying made more sense a few years ago, when near-zero interest rates meant there was less incentive to hold on to cash, the equation has changed. Now that interest rates are higher, fixed-income allocations may produce more significant returns in a portfolio. So, taking payouts now and using them to help with cash-flow shortfalls means your savings in your portfolio can stay intact, compounding and growing.

“Right now you can earn 5% on cash,” says [retirement researcher David] Blanchett. “The higher the returns you expect to earn in the market or on interest rates for annuities, the more claiming early can make sense.”

We know a couple of families whose budgets are strained because they're waiting until 70 to maximize their benefits. Although in the long run that still might be the best decision for them, I'm not confident that it is; these families have been forced to sell some assets or withdraw funds from retirement plans to pay expenses.

Financial rules-of-thumb are generalizations that don't fit every individual situation. Run the numbers, or get someone to help you. Then make the decision using the best information you have, and don't look back.

Picking Up Their Marbles

2018 rubble of the city once known as Paradise.The old
advice to stand under a doorway during an earthquake
seems to have some basis in fact. (Chron photo)

Insurance companies are walking away from California's home and auto business, and the Chronicle editorial board--stop the presses!--sympathizes with the companies: [bold added]

Seven of the state’s top 12 insurers have paused or restricted new business since 2022, and consumer options seem to shrink every day. The latest examples: Farmers Direct Property and Casualty Insurance Co. recently announced plans to end coverage in California and shift most policyholders to its parent company, Farmers — which has itself already limited coverage in the state. Last month, four small insurers said they would stop renewing California policies in 2024...

California is among the states with the nation’s highest cost of living but comparatively low insurance rates. This is partly due to Proposition 103, which established a robust regulatory process that, among other things, requires the insurance commissioner to review and approve any rate changes.

Prop. 103 had the admirable intent of protecting consumers and increasing transparency. But in practice, it has discouraged insurers from raising rates above a 7% threshold that triggers a more extensive and often costly review process. In 2022, it took the California Insurance Department an average of 349 days to approve rate filings, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis.

This has hindered California’s insurance market from nimbly adjusting rates to match conditions on the ground...

It’s one thing to be wary of “unchecked corporate interests,” as the congressional delegation put it. It’s another to deny that a business needs to make money in order to stay afloat. Over the past 10 years, insurance companies’ direct profit on insurance transactions in California was -6.1%, compared to 4.2% nationwide.

Economics teaches that, if prices are held below the level at which demand meets supply, shortages of the product or service will result. And so it is that California has a shortage of policies and the companies that write them.

(Note that I am not advocating a total elimination of government oversight. Without regulation a business could collect premiums and flee without having to make good on claims.)