Have you ever dealt with your insurance company and gotten frustrated?  Ha!  I realize this may be an understated question.

I got to thinking about the whole insurance customer service thing the other night and began to wonder what the world would be like if an insurance company took over fast food giant McBurgers (not their real name).

It’s asking simple questions like this that lead us into deep insights.  Like when Einstein was a boy and ask what the universe would look like if he rode on a beam of light.  Okay, never mind, that’s a really stupid question and all it got him was a bad haircut, but an insurance company takeover of McBurgers is clearly important to ponder.

Let’s say you wanted to order a cheeseburger.

For starters, I’m sure you would never be able to actually talk to anyone.  You’d have to dial in your order and talk to an ICVR (Inane Computer Voice Response program).  The discussion might start off like this …

ICVR.  “Please enter your 33 digit account number with the first three digits backwards followed by a hyphen and then the square root of all the other numbers.”
ICVR.  “All agents are busy, please stay on the line.  We value your business.” (this is repeated for thirty minutes).  Then finally …
ICVR. “Please listen to all of our menu options because they have changed … If you want a CB-#1, press 1, if you want a CB-#2, press 2, if you want a BM-#0, press 3, if you want a FF-#1 press 4, if you want a MS-#1 press 5 …” ad nauseum (author’s note: they don’t actually say ad nauseum, I was just illustrating this goes on for a long time and you are starting to feel nauseumed).

Okay, you get the picture of how this starts out.  So you just push some buttons hoping you ordered something.  Then there is a question about your co-pay.  You pay that and then you fumble around to get your Burger Insurance Plan card because you have to enter your Plan Code.  After you enter your Plan Code you are told this McDonald’s location is not in your network and you will have to drive to another location.

You drive to another location and have to do everything all over again.  Now let’s take the happy path here and assume you finally get your cheeseburger, because this story could go on for a long time in this target rich environment.

A week later you get you Burger Insurance Bill in the mail.  It says you had a CB-#2 (whatever that is) which they paid $.50 for, and you may owe $1.00 (see notes 3 and 4 on the reverse of the statement if you have Plan Codes ending in B and sometimes Z1).  Also they think you owe $.25.  And you still have $350 to go on your deductible before they begin to pay the full 80% of your burger expenses (you will still need to pay the other 20%).

Okay, so that’s pretty straight forward, so you take a wild-ass guess and send them $2.00.  Thirty days later you get a statement saying you are late on your payment, and to please pay the remaining $1.75, or your Burger Insurance coverage will be canceled if payment is not received by 11:59:59 PM within 10 days.

Whew!

I guess that’s about all of the deep insights I can take on this subject for now.  So what’s my take away from this important thought experiment?

Well, I now have a deep and abiding respect for the current Fast Food Industry.  That about sums it up.

How about you?  Any insurance stories to report (chuckle).

J. Daniel (fumbling for his Burger Co-Pay amount while filling out a 47 page claim form).

P.S. We didn’t even get into insurance doughnut holes, but that’s another story for another time.

Sometimes we need to recalibrate our personal danger meter.  We often react to dramatic events disproportionately to less dramatic events that are far more dangerous.  And happen more frequently.

A familiar case in point is travel.  If I gave you two choices on how to travel, and told you that if you chose option 1 you had an 800% greater chance of being killed in an accident than if you chose option 2, which one would you prefer.

Naturally option 2, I would guess.  That’s traveling by airplane.  Bad option 1 is traveling by automobile.  Yet many people would choose the automobile over flight because, well, airplane crashes are very dramatic.  There are other reasons, of course, such as a general fear of flying, but you get the picture here.  Our perception of danger is often based on drama, not facts.

Similarly, which energy source that we use is the most dangerous?  I base these figures on how many deaths are caused per watts of energy produced.  You know what watts are.  A household example is the ordinary light bulb which typically uses 100 watts of energy.

In my example here, I have three energy sources and how many deaths per year they create per trillion watts  of energy produced (1,000,000,000,000 – known as a terawatt).  Your choices are 1) Nuclear, 2) Coal and 3) Oil.

So which is the most dangerous, second dangerous and least dangerous?

Will the real Tera Watt please stand up.

And the answer is  … coal, which results in 4000 deaths a year.  Oil is second, with about 1000 deaths a year.  And nuclear.  A very distant third at about 1 death per year.

Surprising, isn’t it.  Because right now, nuclear is getting all of the dramatic headlines in Japan.  And I’m not downplaying that situation, which is quite serious.

But it makes you wonder why we all aren’t worrying daily, even hourly, about the dangers of coal.

Because it is seldom as dramatic.  I think maybe we need to recalibrate our danger meters, don’t you?

Have a nice day – J. Daniel

You know, there are some things that just can’t be done.  Like a do-over on a bad parachute jump, for example.  Or stopping a cat from chasing a mouse.  Or not laughing yourself silly at the non-stop budgeting tragedy/comedy coming out of Washington — which provides daily proof for comedian Will Rogers’ line that “The only time the nation is safe is when Congress is not in session.” 

The current Romper Room Rumpus is over cutting the budget for 2011.  And the combatants are hard at it.  They are fighting tooth and nail over cutting small billions of dollars from a HUGE multi-trillion dollar budget.  Yes, I am aware small billions is an oxymoron to mere mortal citizens like you and I.  But not in Washington. 

Cutting billions from this size budget is like a 500 pound man saying he’s serious about his diet and arguing with himself about whether to eat one less potato chip a day or two.  It’s just not going to make a difference. 

To show the budget food fight for the insincere folly that it is, you have to scale the numbers down to something you and I can relate to.  So I chose the international standard of the typical Wal-Mart shopper. 

Let’s say I have a crazy Uncle Sam, who makes $40,000 a year (what the average Wal-Mart shopper makes).  Now most of us shop at Wal-Mart, and everyone has a crazy uncle in the family.  Shoot, I’m a crazy Uncle myself, come to think of it.  But I’m not nearly as crazy as Sam. 

Anyhow, you might say he has a bit of a spending problem.  He just doesn’t know when to stop.  Of course, us nephews and nieces always asking him to buy us stuff may be a factor, but hey, we’re entitled, aren’t we? 

But back to Uncle Sam, because this story isn’t about me, it’s about him and his modest income of $3333 a month. 

But here’s the problem.  He spends almost $5384 a month.  Yep.  Every month.  That’s over $2000 a month more than he makes.  You might wonder how he does that.  Then again, you might not.  He spends the good ol’ American way – he uses credit cards.  He’s got a wallet full of them … ummm … kinda maxed out these days, but he keeps getting new ones, so he just keeps on spending. 

I mentioned he’s been doing this for some time, right.  So he has some … uh … pretty hefty credit card balances.  The last time we looked, his credit card balance was $261,960.  And he doesn’t get very good interest rates either so he has to pay over 20%.  That’s $5461 a month, or a whopping $65529 a year.  Just in interest … hmmm … remember, Uncle Sam makes $40,000 a year, right. 

Now you may think this is pretty hopeless, but lately Uncle Sam has been having a real turn of heart on his spending and debt situation.  He’s decided to cut way back.  He even has this powerful argument with himself about whether he should get real serious and cut back $46 a month or get laser-like focused and cut out $92 dollars a month.  You can sure tell how dead serious he is about getting this under control when you see drastic cut backs like that (chuckle).  Oh, and I forgot to mention, one cousin suggested he should cut back by $765 a month, but everyone said he was crazy and the idea was quickly dismissed. 

We all feel real encouraged about the whole thing because, hey, it’s a start.  As a matter of fact, all of us nephews and nieces have been so jazzed we asked him if he’d buy us all a new car with the savings.  And he said sure, now that he’s getting serious about reducing his debt he’ll have plenty of money. 

I think we should all root for Uncle Sam, don’t you?  You go, Uncle Sam! (I’ve got my eye on a new Ferrari). 

So how did I come up with the numbers for my fictitious Uncle Sam?  Simple, really.  I just looked up the Federal revenue ($2,178,412,918,286), budget deficit, etc. and scaled them down to his $40,000 income.  Just so we could relate to the numbers and understand the farce for what it is. 

So when you see the “cut the national budget comedy” on TV tonight, here’s the line-up.  Remember, Uncle Sam has credit card balances over $261,960, an annual income of $40,000, and he spends $2000 a month more than he makes.  His Democratic relatives are arguing mightily to cut back $46 a month.  His Republican relatives are resolved that he cut back $96 a month.  And that crazy cousin I mentioned that suggested $765 a month.  He’s a Libertarian.  Not picking sides here, but the crazy cousin seems to be the least crazy of them all. 

Like I said in the beginning, it seems there are just some things that can’t get done.  Like getting a do-over on a bad sky dive.  Or not laughing yourself silly at the budgeting comedy coming out of Washington.  I mean, you just can’t make this stuff up.  So I have a few questions for you.  They are … 

1)      Do you think most of these folks are serious about cutting spending?

2)      How much do you think Uncle Sam should cut his monthly spending (I bet someone get’s wild here and suggests the $2000 a month he’s spending over his income)?

3)      Most important, do you think I will get my Ferrari? 

Have a great day – J. Daniel 

Note 1: By the way, they aren’t really cutting spending – even with the “so called” cuts, the budget will be more this year than last (except for the Libertarian’s proposal).  That’s just Washington speak for increasing it less than they really want to. 

Note 2:  Here are the numbers I worked up.  This is just a rough estimate based on the proportion of Sam’s income to the Federal Government Revenue.  So there may be some distortions.  But even if I’m off by 10 times, it’s still a great American Comedy.

Note 3: Over the past day or two as I was writing this post, the budget deficit increased by about 3 billion dollars – awesome! 

Note 4: You will definitely want to see the real time US debt clock at http://thewoodchips.com/uncle-sams-play-dough. 

Note 5: Other sites I used for my research are …

http://askville.amazon.com/difference-budget-deficit-National-debt/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=7788207

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

Here’s a great web site I found that you will want to check out.  It’s the US Debt Clock.  It’s real time so as you watch it you see how much we are adding to the budget deficit every second.

It’s fascinating to watch, and you will see how fast we are spending dollars into oblivion.  Talk about a “Green Site.”  This is the ultimate … or is that a red site?  You decide.

Click here to see the budget deficit grow.

Have a nice day – J. Daniel

Isn’t investing in the stock market these days’ just loads of fun?

The late, great American comedian Will Rogers must have thought so in his time.  He said, “Investing is easy.  All you have to do is buy low and sell high.”

Hey, that sounds simple enough.

But when is it low and when is it high?

We put our hard earned money in, thinking we are buying low, and then a series of silly world events scares everyone, they panic, dump their stocks, and take ours down with them.

That creates a new low, doesn’t it?

Which means we bought high, doesn’t it?  Oops!

This may be a little trickier than I thought.

Okay, so what world events triggered this panic?  Well, trifling stuff really, like a near meltdown of some nuclear reactors in Japan and us getting involved in our next war in Libya.

Ummm … correction on the Libya thing.  I meant to say the “Un-War in Libya.”  We try not to call these things wars, even though we are launching cruise missiles, flying our fighter jets, dropping bombs and blowing things up.

Which leads me to my next point which is, what’s so “Un-Normal” about this?

I mean, everyone knows it’s a Presidential requirement these days.  If you don’t start a war during your term in office, you just ain’t hip.  Plus you’ll have nothing exciting for your multi-million dollar Presidential Library.

Besides that – we’re behind schedule.  We only have military troops in 130 of the 180 countries in the world.  Oh, and a quick correction here – I misspoke about the multi-million dollar library thing.  I don’t think million is used in Washington anymore.  It’s gone the way of the Dodo bird, the mil, the penny and the farthing.  Everything is at least a billion — minimum.

So what’s the fuss?  Situation normal, I say.

Back to the Un-War thing, the current administration must have taken a great marketing cue from 7-Up on this one.  Some of you will remember the wildly successful ads they created in 1967 where 7-Up marketed themselves as the Un-Cola.  Sales soared — ummm, not that I’m saying people are trying to sell this war or anything.

But Un-Cola, Un-War, Un-Whatever, it made the stock market nervous and caused some folks to head for the investment hills (or is that Un-Valleys).

Of course, there still is that pesky nuclear reactor thing.  It’s so strange, really, that just a few weeks ago, nuclear power was becoming the darling of the world.  Even the ecology folks were bought in.  Uranium was greener than a Leprechaun’s butt.

So I took a financial newsletter recommendation to buy into some Canadian uranium stocks.  They were touted as dirt cheap.  That meant I was buying low, right?!

Then Japan, rather inconsiderately, had an earthquake and tsunami and tried to melt down their reactors.  So now uranium is the great Satan of investments and my stocks are down 30%.

Hmmm … so that’s the new low, isn’t it.  Damn – so I bought high again.  Oops!

I’m starting to feel like an ad I saw on the internet that read, “For Sale: John Deere Tractor: Runs good.  Missing seat and steering wheel.  Ideal for someone who has lost their ass and doesn’t know which way to turn.”

But you can’t keep a good man down for long.  Undaunted, I initiated some further research, because you just can’t believe everything you read on the “internets.”

And sure enough, our crack research team here at www.TheWoodChips.com revealed that Will Rogers was badly misquoted.  What he actually said was, “Don’t gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it.  If it don’t go up, don’t buy it.”

See there!  That makes all the difference, doesn’t it.

I feel better already, don’t you?

Happy investing – J. Daniel

P.S.  Also, I’m taking a cue from Washington, because they know everything.  I’m going to start calling my investments Un-Investments.  Care to buy some uranium stocks – cheap?

P.P.S. You’ll enjoy some great Will Rogers quotes at this site http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Will_Rogers.

Also a nice write-up about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_rogers.

And a 7-Up Time Line and History with the Uncola campaign at http://www.twoop.com/food/7up.html.

If you notice things get a little darker Saturday at 8:30 PM, don’t worry, it’s probably due to the annual Earth Hour event.

Organized by the World Wildlife Fund, it’s held on the last Saturday in March to raise awareness of taking actions on Global Climate Change.  This is done by asking households and businesses to turn off any of their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour.

While the gesture is largely symbolic, it seems a noble goal and the target is for one billion participants worldwide.  Each year more cities participate, and I believe Orlando will be one of them this year.

Sydney, Australia also participates and it’s estimated that their energy savings for this one hour event is the equivalent of taking 46,000 cars off of the road for one hour.

Critics say this is the energy equivalent to zero, and there may even be a net power loss due to all of the electrical startup after the event.

There’s probably no harm in the organized event, and I think raised environmental awareness is probably a good thing.

If nothing else, you should be able to gaze at the stars in the night sky with less light pollution.

Just don’t trip down the stairs or fall off of your sundeck while doing so.

Happy Earth Hour – J. Daniel.