Humorality began several years ago with a simple idea: There is always a lighter side to the news. Now, five years later, it’s time I faced the cold truth: The world is still funny! But there are serious ideas to pursue as well.

As I enter my mid-life crisis, I wanted to explore the serious side of my world in ways that I couldn’t do through Humorality. Because of this new interest, it’s been some time since I’ve posted fresh content on this site. Today I announce the difficult decision to close Humorality.com.

As some of my readers already know, I began the Well-Read Man Project in the summer of 2011, a chance to read fifty of life’s most important books over the course of twelve months and share the experience with others. The project site, wellreadman.com, is the new focal point of my regular musings. Now that the core reading aspects of that project are complete, I’m expanding the site to include new content and more ideas that people expect from being well read. Heck, I’ll even throw in some humor from time to time.

If you read Humorality.com through its RSS feed, NetworkedBlogs, Facebook, or Twitter, I hope you’ll consider signing up for the articles and tweets available through wellreadman.com. My Facebook page is online at facebook.com/wellreadman, and my new Twitter feed is twitter.com/thewellreadman.

Thank you for laughing with me over the past five years.

Santa Claus, once a strong contender for the Republican presidential ticket, has seen his Iowa poll numbers fall in recent days after rumors surfaced of a bribery scandal. The complaint, raised by potential voters across the state and across party lines, is that Santa attempted to influence voter intent by delivering toys to the children of Iowa. A spokesman for the Claus campaign called the charges “baseless and naughty.” Nonetheless, children all over this rural state have been seen jumping and playing with toys still bearing a “From Santa” tag.

Mr. Claus had been running neck-in-neck with Mitt Romney in a poll of Iowa residents just two weeks ago, but that support has quickly slipped to below ten percent. The fall-off in popularity shadows similar trends by other candidates such as Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich in what has turned out to be a GOP Anyone-But-Romney-But-Come-On-Isn’t-There-A-Viable-Republican-Anywhere political season.

John Tate, Ron Paul’s campaign manager, lashed out at the overweight yet jovial candidate, accusing him of “singlehandedly destroying the American way of life with his foreign-made toys and his ability to slip through our nation’s porous borders undetected time and time again.” He also repeated the mantra, heard frequently on his campaign commercials, that Mr. Claus’s red suit is “an obvious signal of his leftist beliefs.” Fellow candidate Michele Bachmann was unusually silent, stating only that she loved the new Barbie® Malibu Dreamhouse set she received on Christmas morning.

The allegations of vote buying aren’t the only issue plaguing Santa. In the most recent Republican debate, several candidates chided him for his offshore factories that skirt American labor rules and taxation. His campaign also struggled after his staffers mistakenly registered him on several state ballots as “Kris Kringle,” raising voter confusion. And just three days ago, the online watchdog group Is Santa For Real? released a scan of a birth certificate from Turkey for “Nicholas of Myra” that it claims proves Santa’s ineligibility for the office of President. That scandal passed quickly when it was shown that the birth year listed on the document was 270AD, indicating a possible fake.

Despite these setbacks, the self-proclaimed “December Surprise” was upbeat. “You better watch out; I’m coming to town, Washing-town!” said St. Nick at a campaign stop in Des Moines early this morning. “Other candidates promise; I deliver!”

[Image Credits: Microsoft Office clip art]

In Oliver Stone’s 1987 movie Wall Street, corporate profiteer Gordon Gekko summed up the financial state of America, its businesses, and its citizens: “It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another.” It’s a sentiment embodied in the Occupy Wall Street protests: the rich have all the money. But is it true? Is the economy a zero-sum game, a financial pie from which only limited slices of money are available for the country’s 300-million-plus people?

Consider the fictional country of Gekkoland, an island nation inhabited by 100 people, each with ten one-dollar bills. The total money resources of this community are just $1,000, and as the members of the community engage in business, they shuffle the bills around. It’s wouldn’t be surprising to find some people with much more than their initial $10, while others struggle to keep just one of those bills.

Such an island economy gives a partial glimpse into why the Occupy protestors are so upset. But it is also a wholly inaccurate view of how an economy works. In a real economy, money is not limited to the individual pieces of legal tender passed between buyers and sellers. Instead, economic activity causes the net worth of a community or nation to grow beyond its limited paper money resources. Dollar bills have value, but the goods and services produced by individuals and businesses also have value, as do those natural resources that go into those produced goods and services. All of these activities and investments contribute value to the community, increasing the initial pile of money. Paper currency is simply a convenient means of transferring a portion of the total community value.

Let’s look at some actual numbers for America’s economy. In 1945, the total net worth of all American households and non-profit organizations was $664.2 billion.[1] By 2010, that value had increased to $57,778.5 billion.[2] That’s an increase of more than $57 trillion. Even if you consider the meager funds that foreign immigrants bring to the United States, it’s not possible for cash alone to suddenly increase eighty-seven times over in sixty-five years. Instead, this growth occurs through economic activity, a positive-sum game.

There’s no denying that a significant part of that $58 trillion is held by the richest one percent. But that was also true in 1945, and somehow the rest of the (constantly increasing) population was able to increase their own net worth despite the amassed resources of the wealthy.

I am all for grass-roots protests in America, and some of the issues brought up by the protestors that relate to government bailouts of Wall Street firms strike a chord in my own heart. But if the tent-dwelling “ninety-nine percent” want to be taken seriously, it’s time they start educating themselves about what wealth distribution in the United States really means for the one hundred percent.

[Image Credits: Microsoft Office clip art]

[1] Federal Reserve Bank, Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States, 1945-1954, Table B.100, “Balance Sheet of Households and Nonprofit Organizations,” Net Worth for 1945, page 97, http://www.federalreserve.gov/RELEASES/z1/Current/annuals/a1945-1954.pdf.
[2] Federal Reserve Bank, Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States, 2005-2010, Table B.100, “Balance Sheet of Households and Nonprofit Organizations,” Net Worth for 2010, page 97, http://www.federalreserve.gov/RELEASES/z1/Current/annuals/a2005-2010.pdf.

If you are going to apologize, you might as well make it for something big. Take the mea culpa of radio prophet Harold Camping a few weeks ago. After incorrectly predicting the end of the world, Camping publicly backed away from his earlier statements of mankind’s demise. His recantation is understandable; the world not coming to an end on October 21 was pretty easy to spot. But this was not the first time he threw out an errant doomsday forecast. Since the late 1980s, Camping has made four distinct world-ending proclamations, none of which, it appears, came to pass.

It’s easy to find reasons why someone would make grandiose claims like this. Whether from false motives or true, people sometimes throw out predictions that they can’t possibly back up. Yet even when their failures are documented on the front page of The New York Times, people still respond with excitement to revised predictions from those same false prophets. When a small-time preacher with a handful of followers engages in such behavior, the fallout is limited. But when politicians engage in this same misleading behavior, the results can be costly.

A good example of this is the high-speed rail project currently under development in California. When voters went to the polls in 2008 to raise funding for the project, the official estimate was set at $42.6 billion (using year-of-expenditure calculations) for a San Francisco to Anaheim run^[1]. The day after Harold Camping confessed his own mistaken estimates, California issued revised numbers that increased the estimate for that same length of track to $81.1 billion^[2], nearly doubling the project cost in just three years.

There was no hint of remorse in the new projections, nor any sense of irony given that one goal of the project was to “alleviate the need to build—at a cost of nearly $100 billion—about 3,000 miles of new freeway, plus five airport runways, and 90 departure gates over the next two decades” (emphasis added).^[3] Even beyond the monetary inaccuracies, the idea that five new runways would be needed to manage a single intrastate transportation leg is laughable—and an outright lie.

Politicians and government bureaucracies that throw out expert estimates, only to double or triple them soon after, are just as misleading as those misguided prophets who publicize wrong dates for the end of the world. From Medicare to Social Security, from local road construction projects to national military expenditures, legislators are adept at issuing fiscal estimates that do not come anywhere near the eventual outlays of funds. Yet while we deride those who buy in to catastrophic Mayan calendar assessments, we continue to fall for one failed prophecy after another from elected officials.

Americans are a forgiving people, but we still have standards for our prophets. When they err, we are ready to offer pardon, but only after hearing a heartfelt apology. It’s time that we demand such contrition from our own politicians. And an apology better come soon, for I hear that after 2012 it might not matter.

[Image credits: Global warming image copyright (c) 2008 by BSK (sxc.hu/speculator)]

[1] California High-Speed Rail Authority, “Fact Sheet for the December 2009 Business Plan Report to the Legislature,” issued December 14, 2009, http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/assets/0/152/198/d7539774-c983-4a33-a2d1-f9cc001c143e.pdf
[2] California High-Speed Rail Authority, “2012 Draft Business Plan Fact Sheet,” issued November 1, 2011, http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/assets/0/152/302/6e05bd66-4317-46df-9891-4aea706fae01.pdf
[3] California High-Speed Rail Authority, “2008 Business Plan Summary,” issued November 7, 2008, http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/assets/0/152/198/1ea0c562-c16e-4a09-a159-dbfccb54268f.pdf

With the economy in shambles and the fall TV season lineup not looking much better, I’ve started to ask myself, “Where has all my money gone?” The various Occupy protestors around the nation wave a shameful finger at corporate CEOs and other one-percentish types, insisting that their high incomes mean more poverty for the common man. But is that true? Is the average person poorer now than in the past?

To find out the truth, I went to a source of honesty and upstanding values: the US government. Well, it might have issues, but it does produce a mountain of statistics, and the US Census Bureau is no exception. Here’s what I found. Between 1967 and 2010, the average (mean) household income in the United States rose from $45,599 to $67,530, all in 2010 inflation-adjusted dollars^[1]. That’s a 48 percent increase in raw financial largess.

That number isn’t simply being pulled up by the super-rich. The median income over the same time period rose from $40,770 to $49,445. That means that if you lined up all of the households in America, being careful not to let any fall into the oceans at the ends, the house right in the middle of the line had 21 percent more buying power. That’s not true just for that Median Joe family, but all the families nearby. Plus, those households have fewer people in them now (from 3.26 persons^[2] down to 2.58 persons^[3] per household), giving each man, woman, and child in the country an even more substantial increase in the last 43 years.

These numbers are all statistics, and there will always be anecdotal instances of specific households falling through the societal safety net. And there are blocks of households that sway the results slightly; the large Baby Boomer demographic tends to have more money than the smaller yet vocal twentysomething class. But by and large, the majority of households in America are richer than they were in the Johnson era. So why doesn’t it feel that way to so many, especially to those who make noise about being in the 99 Percent?

It’s the iPhone’s fault. Memory is short, especially for the younger generation that doesn’t remember what the typical American life was like before Google. Back in the day, families spent less money. They went out to eat less, bought ordinary 10-speeds for their kids instead of flashy fixie bikes, and communicated by licking a 13-cent postage stamp instead of paying $150 or more per month for a family voice and data plan. Life didn’t cost as much back then, not because CEOs weren’t sucking our wallets dry, but because the typical lifestyle involved lower-cost essentials.

With healthcare costs and mortgages skyrocketing, it is certainly true that families spend more on the necessities of life. But with designer stainless steel appliances in the kitchen and a Cheesecake Factory on every corner and a 3G-connected Android device always at the ready, what constitutes a “necessity” has changed. Yes, the CEOs are richer than ever before, but that’s only because we are, too.

^[1] US Census Bureau, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010, released September 2011, http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf
^[2] US Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States, Table HS-12, “Households by Type and Size 1900 to 2002,” http://www.census.gov/statab/hist/HS-12.pdf
^[3] US Census Bureau, May 26, 2011 press release, http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/2010_census/cb11-cn144.html

[Image credits: Microsoft Office clip art]

We are now well into the seventh week of the Occupy Portions of Wall Street protests, and perhaps it is time to start asking: Why are they doing it? Oh sure, there is the rhetoric about how the rich Wall Street fat cats exploit the middle class and the poor. But where are the details? Certainly the rich have the ability to exploit the poor. Even the Bible, in the book of James, warns about becoming too cozy with the rich and their manipulative ways. But it’s not enough to just say “they exploit.” If you want to accomplish anything, you need to be specific.

When a wealthy CEO buys, for instance, a yacht, does that exploit the lesser classes? Not really. The purchase of a boat generates jobs for those who manufacture and maintain said boat. Governments receive new revenues in the form of sales taxes and boat-company employee income taxes. And every minute a CEO spends on a boat is one minute away from exploiting others for profit. So purchasing a yacht is not an oppressive action. It’s no different from the middle-class purchase of a Toyota Camry; no lower-class citizens were harmed in the purchase of that car.

Are CEO salaries a form of exploitation? If the average CEO is indeed making more than 400 times as much as a corporate employee—as the occupiers assert—that is certainly shocking news. But is that the exploitation we should worry about? I haven’t followed up on that claim of disparity, but assuming it is true: even if the CEOs of all Fortune 500 companies gave up most of their incomes to be used as salaries for others, that would only fund jobs for about 100,000 to 150,000 workers. In an age of nine-percent-plus American unemployment, that’s an almost meaningless number. And besides, America’s economy is not a zero-sum game. Economies grow, and a rich person’s income is not what prevents the middle and lower classes from obtaining jobs.

So where is the exploitation? If the problem is not with CEO incomes, and it’s not in their spending habits, where is the oppression? Is it in how they engage in business practices that undermine their competitors? Perhaps. There are anti-monopoly laws that watch for illegal behavior. But most aggressions against other companies come in the form of undercutting prices, an action that is a win for the average consumer. So that’s not the core exploitative issue.

What about the rich’s ability to use money to influence government action for personal and business gain? Is this a form of exploitation? Yes, this is an oppressive act, and a form of manipulation among those in a position to hinder the lives of ordinary citizens. Every dollar that the government gives to a bankrupt solar power company, or to a failing bank, or to a food processing conglomerate is one dollar that was taken from a typical taxpayer, a dollar that that taxpayer could have used for rent, food, clothing, or in purchasing a product from those same companies.

Rich companies and their leaders take advantage of government subsidies and grants for their own benefit, and for this they deserve condemnation. But the core problem is in the weak-willed elected officials who wave to voters with one hand while passing billions of dollars to their greedy corporate friends with the other. Protestors gripe about a CEO’s easy access to legislators. But if that congressman stands firm in the wake of lobbying efforts, where is the harm? The problem starts when someone you put into office says, “Sure Mr. Wall Street, whatever you want.”

If Occupy Wall Street wants to have a positive impact on the ninety-nine percent, it’s time they stop milling around business centers, and start holding the true exploiters accountable, in the voting booth.

[Image Credits: Microsoft Office clip art].

Businesses provide goods or services in exchange for money. When you buy groceries at the store, you pay. When you get your haircut at a salon, you pay. It works the same way for banks; when you open an account, you pay. But banks discovered that if they could collect your payment through interest or by charging the merchants fees every time you use your debit card, you would be happier. You still pay for the checking account, but you do it indirectly through reduced interest rates or increased prices from merchants. It’s all hidden from you; “free checking” is bankspeak for “hidden-fees checking,” and Americans love hidden fees.

And they hate direct charges. That’s why things got complicated when Bank of America recently announced a new customer fee for debit card transactions. The fee stems from the “Durbin amendment,” a portion of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 added by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) just before passage. Previously, banks could charge merchants up to 44 cents for each debit card transaction. The updated rules limit banks with over $10 billion in assets to a charge of just 24 cents per transaction. $10 billion? 44 cents? 24 cents? Don’t ask where the numbers come from. The point is that Bank of America, which had been using those fees to offset the costs of free customer services, needed to obtain the money elsewhere. The solution? Charge the customer directly.

It was an idea that bordered on treason. “What Bank of America has done is an outrage,” said Senator Durbin in response to the bank’s new $5 per month fee. Of course it’s an outrage; it’s a direct payment. Didn’t banks learn back in the days of free toasters that they couldn’t charge customers for their goods and services?

Durbin has it right. In fact, he needs to issue a few more amendments that eliminate the ridiculous up-front fees charged by restaurants, gas stations, office supply stores, and—please, please, please—Amazon.com. The government is already an expert at hiding its own charges. Payroll withholding is a genius idea that keeps people ignorant and happy. If you never see the money coming out of your paycheck, why should you care where it goes? And half of the taxes you pay for Social Security and Medicare are actually paid on your behalf by your employer. Of course, your salary is reduced by the same amount, but who cares? It’s hidden!

Still, there are so many things that Americans pay for up front. It’s high time that we stopped paying attention and started paying more hidden fees. The Obama administration has done a good job at getting the ball rolling. Following Bush’s lead in the banking bailout, Obama invested in the automobile industry, and investment means hidden fees. Yes! And now with exciting new programs such as Obamacare, federal funding of failing green energy startups, and nearly unlimited extensions for unemployment and student loan payments, the end of out-of-pocket spending may finally be in sight. Of course, it will require nearly 100 percent taxation rates, but what were you going to spend that money on anyway? Bank fees?

[Image Credits: Credit card copyright (c) 2010 by James Miller (sxc.hu/highwing)].

Since its inception, Humorality.com has been a place to laugh about about current events. While some may scoff at the idea, this site is proof that humor is an important tool for dealing with the complexities of modern life. But it isn’t the only way.

Starting this week, changes are coming to Humorality.com. You’ll still find humorous spins on the news of the day. You’ll still read insightful commentary that brings a smile to your face. But you’ll also start reading more serious articles, the “morality” side of “humorality.” These articles will address modern concerns in the realms of politics, business, entertainment, religion, and other facets of everyday life. While they will be thoughtful and considered, be assured that they will still include a healthy amount of lighthearted flair; the “humor” side of the site remains strongly intact.

If you enjoy the articles you read on Humorality.com, be sure to tell your friends about them. Use the sharing features next to each article. Follow the site using the social media tools in the side bar. And above all, have a laugh when you engage the deeper things in life.

After spending close to three years trying to avoid the issue altogether, President Barack Obama held a press conference last week to announce the full release of his “long-form” green card. Until the announcement, America’s forty-forth president had dismissed calls for full disclosure of his immigration status with a curt “No way, Jose,” raising questions of possible Mexican heritage.

“I have decided to release information on my green card so that we can move on with the nation’s business, and not be distracted repeatedly by my foreign citizenship,” said Mr. Obama. When asked about how he planned to deal with Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, which requires the president be a “natural born citizen of the United States,” he shifted the debate to his health care legislation. “While I understand the difficulties of those born through cesarean means, I am proud to say that my mother delivered me in the most natural, non-surgical manner available at the time in Kenya.”

“This fight is not over,” said Gwen Carpenter, leader of a “birther” organization called “The White House or the Big House, Your Choice.” Ms. Carpenter continued, “For one thing, that card isn’t even green. I’m part of a grass-roots movement. We know green.”

The surprise announcement has had little impact on the administration’s overall popularity. A network-news poll taken just seconds into the press conference found that Obama’s approval ratings had not changed since earlier in the day.

Even with the ambivalence of the electorate on his side, President Obama may face a difficult challenge as the 2012 campaign season heats up. “Ever since I heard that the President had released his green card, I’ve found myself questioning why he released the document at this time,” said a maudlin Donald Trump. “Now I have to think up some other divisive issue.”

[Image Credits: White House official photo]

A spate of costly delays has once again pushed back the planned restart date for the ailing global warming machine. Repair crews are working around the clock to restore the climate-altering system amid a tide of accusations from government leaders and denials from the secret one-world uber-government that such a machine even exists. The system, which has been out of commission for over a decade, could be down for several more years.

“This is a fiasco,” said Hiroshi Bilderberger, a high-ranking manager in the family business that controls the global warming device. “It’s so frustrating when the hidden right hand doesn’t know what the hidden left hand is doing. The International Weather Service was pushing forward with production of the needed radioactive Iodine-131 and Cesium-137 isotopes in our Fukushima plant. Then for reasons beyond my comprehension, the International Tsunami Service scatters the stuff all over Tokyo. What is this world coming to?”

Despite efforts by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama to hide the problem with a series of exciting wars, whistleblowers are speaking up faster than the CIA can dispense with them. Sarah Silversmith, a professor of Earth Studies at a university that asked not to be named, was not surprised at the troubles. “The machine dates back to the Eisenhower administration, which first proposed the ‘Meteorology-Industrial Complex.’ The thing dies every few years, and since we deny it even exists, it’s hard to find qualified repairmen. It’s really too bad, too, because it’s a gorgeous machine. Lots of shiny gears and whistles and smooth glass.”

The size of the machine also makes repairs complex. The system exists in three parts of the globe: the control components in Geneva, Switzerland; the warming turbines just outside of Rio de Janeiro; and an administration office with full secretarial staff located in Minot, North Dakota. As first exposed in the 1973 Charlton Heston documentary Soylent Green, the ultimate purpose of the device is to allow a worldwide conglomeration of evil business interests and puppet governments to implement cannibalism by 2022. “I was just telling Al Gore the other day that I’d be surprised if man-burgers showed up before the middle of the century,” said an agitated Dick Cheney.

[Image Credits: nasa.gov web site]