The Amateur Financier

It’s important to have dreams. Not just tasks, which we actively work to achieve. Not hopes, those wishes we send into the wind that may, or may not, be accomplished ‘one day’. Not even resolutions, those tasks we set for ourselves at least once a year in order to improve our lot in life.

No, dreams, those far off, seeming impossible for the moment (but we WILL achieve one day) goals that help to motivate and inspire us as we move through life. I shared a rather impressive sounding dream yesterday, one from Mrs. Accountability of Out of Debt Again, a dream of owning a yarn shop. It’s a bit of an odd dream, as even Mrs. Accountability admits, but you can tell as you read through her post and can see the passion in her writing that this goal is one she is determined about and focused on.

Have you ever tried to find an image for 'dream'? It's not easy...

That sort of passion is the type of thing I think we all could use a little of in our lives, so I thought I would take a page from Mrs. Accountability’s play book and share my own dream job:

I Want to Be a Professor

I know, it probably doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that will convince anyone that I am anything but a huge nerd at heart. (Not that I would try; as Sondra is fond of pointing out, I don’t exactly come off as anything BUT a huge nerd, so why fight the inevitable?)

There’s just something about teaching that I have to admit I enjoy. One of the more enjoyable parts of being a graduate student is that I have the opportunity to teach undergraduates in the lab courses and recitations (essentially, a sort of study/review session the students go to once a week to try to make sure they are actually learning the material). Being able to help the students understand the material is a great feeling, as is seeing the look in their eyes as things finally click.

There’s also the opportunity to do research, not because it might lead to a new drug or other product (although, do not misunderstand me, such research is very important), but simply to advance human knowledge, and build up such knowledge that might, one day in the distant future, lead to medical or other scientific advances. Being able to add to the sum total of human knowledge is a pretty impressive thing to add to the old resume, and it’s one of the reasons why I first got into the physical sciences.

But First…

Now, you might assume from all of this that I’m heading as quickly as possible towards being a professor. That’s not quite the case. While I do want to become a professor at some point in my career, there is the issue that work in academia tends to pay significantly less than work in the business sphere for biochemists such as myself. Heck, I know this from personal experience, having earned nearly as much in entry level industrial positions with a Bachelor’s degree as I could expect to earn in the academic field with a Ph.D.

So, my plan actually looks a little more like this: I intend to graduate this year (hopefully in the spring, although given how much trouble I’ve been having getting my research to turn out properly, I’d be willing to settle for the end of summer). I will start an industrial job, probably in the pharmaceutical area which is where many of us biochemists end up, soon after graduation (the job hunt is already a foot), marrying my dear Sondra around the same time, and before long we will add a child or two to our little family.

Where does becoming a professor fit in, then? That’s more for the second act of my life (or perhaps third, if I’m already on act two with going back for a Masters’ Degree); my dream is to work for a decade or two, helping to support my family and allowing Sondra to be the stay a home mother (and work from home artist) that she wants, before I continue my education, get a Ph.D., and do what I can to become a tenured professor. It’s not impossible; it’s actually semi-common in the biochemistry field to come back to academia after a stint in industry, although I will have to earn a Ph.D. at some point to even hope to become a full professor. It will mean gearing up for a second career when many people are settling into the same rut, trying to push through another decade or two before they can call it a lifetime and retire.

But here’s the thing: I WANT to keep working. I can’t foresee a time when I’m ready to spend all day fishing or lounging at a retirement home or traveling the world. (Although, if I do want to do that last one, there are academic opportunities all around the world I might be able to take advantage of, as well as an ever increasing ability to work with other scientists, even those outside of the United States. To say nothing of a good old-fashioned hiatus or two.  Plus, there are advantages to becoming a professor emeritus after a successful career.)

Being a professor is just something I’ve wanted to do, for at least the last decade now. Hopefully, one day, I’ll be able to put it into action.

What is your dream profession? What are you doing to make it a reality?

I was reading Financial Samurai’s post on The Ultimate Solution For A Fair Income Tax Policy in America quite a while ago, but I still wanted to say something about it.  (Sometimes, these response posts end up disappearing in my archive for a while.)  If you haven’t had a chance to read it, or if it’s been a while and you want to refresh your memory, it’s pretty interesting (as Sam’s posts tend to be).  The Cliff Notes version is that he recommends only allowing those people who pay income taxes to vote.  If you don’t have any of your own money at stake when government starts divvying up the spoils, you’re not going to have any qualms giving out the money (and taking some yourself), or so the thinking goes.

Well, I and some other commentators had some qualms with that approach.  (Sometimes I think that Sam writes these kind of articles just to get us all riled up; not a bad strategy, if that’s what he’s doing).  The complaints included the fact that income taxes are not the only taxes being paid (there’s everything from sales taxes to Social Security taxes that lower income people pay; should they only be able to vote on issues that their taxes go to fund?  If that’s the case, expect to see lots of votes to up Social Security benefits to low or moderate income people (that is, incomes at or below that of the voter) and increasing the threshold for paying Social Security benefits.)  There are also plenty of ethical issues with disenfranchising a number of people (which is the sort of thing that’s led to protests, even wars in the past).  Short version, not something I think would be possible.

But, in the course of answering Sam’s argument, I came up with my own variation on the idea, which has some possibilities for not only keeping government spending under control, but also potentially increasing the number of people who willingly pay their taxes.

My (Brilliant) Plan

The basic idea is allow individual tax payers to direct their income taxes toward specific government programs. It won’t change the total amount owed, but at the end of the 1040 form, we add on a list of government programs, allowing the taxpayer to choose what programs he wants to support with his or her tax dollars.  (Sorry, no ‘I can spend my money smarter than the government, give me back my tax money now’ option; again, no changes in your tax bill, just in how the money is divided.)

"White House Lawn Maintenance" might be an Option, though

How would this help?  Well, I imagine that you, like me, know plenty of people who like some of what the government does, but not everything.  Heck, it’s difficult to find someone who likes everything the government does, all the time.  From people who think that the government should only defend the borders to those who want more social programs and fewer defense projects, just about everyone wants the government to spend their money differently.

That’s where being able to direct where your money goes could have a nice benefit.  Want to support the troops, and government social programs?  Direct your taxes to the military.  Want social programs to grow, but think there’s too much military spending?  Put your money toward poverty aid or other social programs.  We can even make it possible to direct your money more narrowly; the military, for one example, spends money in lots of ways, from paying soldiers to developing new weaponry.  If you want to give soldiers a nice boost in their income or want to develop ways to keep them safer in the field, you can find the appropriate government programs to do so.

The end result is a closer connection between your tax money and the government programs that it helps to fund.  If you can say to yourself, “I helped to pay those soldiers” or “My tax money helped to rebuild those roads”, it’ll help forge a better connection between your taxes and the services provided.  It could also help to get those who don’t pay taxes in protest of some government program or another to pay, if they could be ensured that their money would only go to the programs they thought were worthwhile.  (The program could also serve as a backdoor means of balancing the federal budget; if you can only put money towards government programs when the taxpayers ‘opt in’, it would make it more difficult to spend money beyond what is taken in taxes.)

Disclaimers and Notes

Before you go out and start to demand this type of tax program from the federal government (or to take to the comments and deride my utter misunderstanding of how the federal government and the tax system really works), bear in mind that this is just me, thinking out loud about government spending and taxes.  I make no claims about the efficiency of this hypothetical system, or if it would be possible to implement such a system.  I just had a thought about government spending and taxes, and wanted to share some thoughts.

Now, though, I’d like your thoughts.  What do you think of my plan?  Do you think it could work, or is it destined for failure?  Has it been tried before anywhere (again, I’m thinking out loud, and wasn’t able to find anything about this type of plan before), and how did it work out?

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Note: I realize that by venturing into the political arena, particularly when taking on a subject that raises as much emotion on both sides of the issue as affirmative action, there is a good chance that my position on the issue is different than yours.  I hope that, rather than hurling insults and pejoratives at each other, we can agree to disagree, and come together to discuss this calmly, and perhaps, even give each other some more insight in how the other side of the issue thinks, and why they believe the way that they do.  Thank you for not simply tossing out insults and going on your way.

We’re in an odd place in history, at least when it comes to race relationships.  The scars of institutionalized discrimination still linger; heck, most of our lawmakers and politicians are old enough to have suffered under the policies of segregation (or conversely, to have tried to enforce them).  Even the youngest among us don’t have to go back further than our grandparents to find a time when ‘Whites Only’ drinking fountains and schools were the law of the land.

On the other hand, in the past fifty or so years, great progress has been made towards the goal of judging people ‘not on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character’.  Legalized discrimination has disappeared from the national stage, minority men and women are ascending to the tops of their chosen fields, and hey, did you hear that we have a black man (or, as I’m sure Financial Samurai would be happy to remind us, a man who is half white, half black) as President of the United States now?

Yup, the guy with the funky O logo

In fact, more than a few people would maintain that we’ve actually gone too far in the other direction, that affirmative action and other attempts to give minorities and others who were (and sometimes still are) discriminated against are actually leading to ‘reverse discrimination’, discriminating against those in the majority.  Evan’s (of My Journey to Millions fame) story of one particular example is what inspired this post in the first place.

Given these conflicting messages, the question becomes, what should we do about affirmative action?  Should we call it done and relegate affirmative action to the dustbin of history, or are the scars of past injustices still fresh enough that we require more salve to soothe them?  Let’s take a closer look at the arguments on both sides.

We Still Need It

Let’s start with something most people on both sides of the debate can agree with: whatever the appropriate place for affirmative action is now, it definitely served a needed purpose in the past.  When the policies were first put into place in the sixties, there were still laws on the books preventing ‘colored’ people from partaking of the same opportunities available to whites.  Discriminatory laws were just being struck down (or were still in force in many places) and the official policies by many schools, businesses and governments was to exclude African-Americans and others from learning, working or participating.

Supporters of continuing affirmative action maintain that things aren’t too much better today.   African-American and other minority members today still experience income inequality, difficulty getting employment, and other problems that Caucasian students and workers do not.  Even without direct discrimination, the legacy of slavery and the following discrimination still puts them at a disadvantage; to cite but one example, it’s hard to be much of a ‘legacy’ student if your grandparents weren’t even allowed to come on the campus.

There’s also the issue of diversity, and the attempts to promote it.  Particularly in college, exposing students to other races and cultures can give them a better appreciation of groups other than their own, and help them better function in the broader world.  Without affirmative action to help minority students get into traditionally white colleges (and vice versa), it’s more likely that students will go to colleges where their own race (or religion, or other trait) is overwhelming prevalent, or even the only one represented, preventing them from broadening their horizons.

It’s Time To End It

While there is little denying that the deck has been stacked against minority groups back in the old days, opponents of affirmative action argue that things  have changed greatly since then.  Whereas discrimination and segregation were the official policies of the past, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone under the age of 60 arguing that viewing the color of someone’s skin allows you to determine their abilities and skills.  (For that matter, you’d be unlikely to find too many people over the age of 60 expressing that opinion nowadays, at least out loud.)

Instead,  the issue many opponents worry about is reverse discrimination.  With schools and businesses so eager to increase the number of minority or otherwise discriminated against students or workers they have, they can end up recruiting less qualified minority candidates while passing over more qualified white students or employees (particularly with some of the older ‘quota’ systems that were in place all but forcing them to get more minority candidates, regardless of skill level).  You end up with the white candidates feeling discriminated against and blaming the minority candidates for not getting in.

It’s not much better for the minorities who are accepted.  Not only must they deal with snide comments behind their back that they ‘only got in because of affirmative action’, but they have to work even harder in order to combat this perception.  Affirmative action also serves as a barrier to a truly colorblind society; if we continue to treat people differently according to the color of their skin, regardless of whether it helps or hinders the people who were victimized in the past, we’re just continuing to reinforce the idea that differences in skin color really DO affect intelligence or other attributes that influence a person’s ability to work.

My Views

As I said at the opening of this post, we are at a weird juncture in history.  We are not yet at the point where skin color doesn’t matter, where society as a whole is able to ignore a person’s race when evaluating his or her skills, but we are far beyond the time when your race could limit you to a second class lifestyle for your entire life.  As we continue along the path from the latter to the former, we’re going to have to change and re-evaluate how we, as a society, view issues of race and equality, and how we react.

That’s why I propose that we end most of the public affirmative action programs we currently have in place.  There are ways to ensure that disadvantaged students, whether their disadvantage comes as a result of their race or some other factor, can get into school.  (Case in point, looking at a student’s socio-economic background rather than his or her race can provide a much more accurate picture of the difficulty he or she has faced throughout their lifetime.)

There will, I am sure, be places, be they universities, businesses, or government offices, that will try to discriminate against one group or another, to add only members of their preferred race(s) to their membership.  But at this point in our society’s growth, any but the smallest, most remote places that attempted such discrimination would quickly find themselves on the wrong end of a boycott by not only the minority community, but also a sizable portion of the white population as well (myself included).  Leaving punishment for discrimination to a well-informed public seems like a much better approach for our current society.

I will admit, such a plan might not work; it’s quite possible that we are not as far along as I believe that we are.  (Not suffering directly from discrimination, I might have a skewed perception on this subject.)  If this is the case, and years from now, we find that without affirmative action, we are headed back away from a fair and equal society, I will be amongst the first calling to reinstate it.  For now, though, I think we can do more good than harm by ending affirmative action.

Readers, what are your views on affirmative action?  Am I missing any advantages that make affirmative action indispensable?  Or any disadvantages that make it even less desirable than I’ve portrayed here?

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‘Money can’t buy happiness’ – Leo Rosten

You’ve probably heard this quotation tossed around at some point in your life.  Usually, it’s trotted out when you are complaining about not getting a big enough raise, or not getting much money in your Christmas cards when you were a kid, or simply struggled to make ends meet.  Then, someone you loved, a parent, sibling, or romantic partner trotted out this old chestnut to try to cheer you up, reminding you that money isn’t everything.

Of course, as with many things in life, that’s far from the whole truth.  As the Financial Samurai notes, only those who have all the money in world really believe that more money can’t bring increased happiness; for those of us who aren’t rubbing elbows with the Hiltons and Buffets of the world, the amount of money we make has a big impact on how happy we are.  Even Leo Rosten would likely agree; the whole quotation, what he actually said, was:

Money can’t buy happiness, but neither can poverty. – Leo Rosten

Where did this notion of money being unlinked to happiness come from, then?  Well, there are studies showing that happiness and money aren’t linked (or are less strongly linked than we might assume from casual existence), like this one from Princeton or the ones cited by Barbara Rose.  But is that the whole story?

The Truth about Money and Happiness

It’s worth remembering that money is, at its core, simply a method of simplifying the exchange of goods and services.  You have extra goats and want a cow; rather than search the land for someone who is willing to swap a goat or two for a cow, you sell the goats, get money, and exchange the money for a cow.  That’s it in a nutshell; money is not good nor evil, neither magical nor supernatural, it’s simply a medium of exchange.

Money buys puppies, and puppies bring happiness. Therefore, money CAN buy happiness!

More money, then, allows you to get more stuff (or have more services provided).  It gives you more options, allows you to do more of whatever it is that you want to do.  Someone with one million dollars can do much more than someone with one thousand dollars; the former could take deluxe vacations, buy impressive cars, or invest it, live off the interest generated, and retire early to spend the rest of her life on a tropical beach, while the latter has none of these options at their disposal.

As Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project notes, ‘money can’t buy happiness, but it sure can buy lots of things that contribute mightily to happiness.’  That’s similar to the conclusions of other researchers, like Gardner and Oswald and San Francisco State University (although, the latter carries the caveat that money makes people happier, if they spend it on life experiences).

The Source of the Myth

Why is the idea that money can’t buy happiness so embedded into our culture?  Well, as mention in the San Francisco State study (and by Financial Samurai), that idea has been a major driving force behind much research over the past few decades, and we humans have a tendency to remember what we hear repeated often enough.  There’s also anecdotal evidence to back up the belief, from poor but happy monks who practice the simple life to millionaires who have immense unhappiness and give away all their money.  (Let’s not forget the tabloids that bring us weekly stories of the rich and famous, all of whom seem to have more problems than the average poor families combined.)

But there’s another reason, namely the main source of money for most of us: work.  As Richard Easterlin notes (first paragraph on the seventh page), ‘most individuals spend a disproportionate amount of their lives working to make money, and sacrifice family life and health’.  In other words, it’s not that money doesn’t make happy, it’s that the need to work for money saps away more happiness than the increased money can provide.

So, what have we learned today?  Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can buy things that help to make us happy.  More important, though, is to have a balance in your life, pursuing what will make you happy (money, family, health, and whatever else brings a smile to your face).  Keep that in mind, and you should end up quite happy when all is said and done.

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