money money money money

I can't remember exactly when, but I think I was like maybe eight years old, because a quarter sounded like pretty good money, but one day the word "Allowance" rang through the Schadt household.  I figure my older sister picked it up somewhere.  It was kind of nice having an older sibling sort of blazing the trail and telling me and my younger sister what laid ahead.

Anyway it was a weekly thing.  I think my parents negotiated it in terms of payment for chores done around the house.  There were always chores that they were trying to get us to do and we were always trying to dodge them, so nothing really changed on that point.

Maybe this is where I get my liberal tendencies.  It just seemed like allowance was some kind of law, and my parents had to give it to me.  It did seem a little unfair to me at the time, but it was unfair for me, so I didn't mind.

I know you had to work in the store, and I think you got paid something for it, but you seem like the kind of guy who would enjoy doing chores, and even if you didn't enjoy them you would be happy to do them just because you are such a damned boy scout.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

As we got older the allowance got bigger, though it never amounted to a lot.  I did mow lawns and shovel snow in the neighborhood and then I would get money from semi distant relatives on my birthday and Christmas.  Of course, being a Bohunk, most of that went right to Talmans. 

Speaking of which, if you want to teach kids how to handle their money, I think you need something like Talmans, like the Talmans of our youth, where when you brought in your little pittance you brought in your little bankbook with it, and the kindly clerk would not only write in the new amount, but he would add whatever interest you had accrued.  Interest!  Free money!!  The way to a Bohunk's heart!!!  Others pay interest, we receive it.  I had to go into debt to get my mortgage and my student loans and it just killed me to pay interest on either one of them.

See, back in the day we had bankbooks, and clunky coins and wrinkled bills that would smell nice if they came out of some lady's purse, real money.  All the youth of today has is those cards, and worse yet, that thing where they hold out their sooper dooper phone and somebody swishes something across it.   I don't think they will ever learn the value of money if they never even see any.

I don't think a buck a day is going to motivate any kid.  Maybe if it was a silver dollar.  One of my grandfathers used to give me a silver dollar from time to time and that impressed me.  Of course we don't have silver dollars anymore, we have these goofy looking coins that they color bronze so that you can tell them from quarters which they are the same size of.  You get them if you do any transaction with the US Government that requires change, like buying stamps at the post office, because the government thinks somehow if they give them we will come to get used to using them.

When you buy something with one of them you always want to tell the clerk so that they won't think it is a quarter.  I find myself saying that it is a silver dollar even though it isn't hardly, because those are just the words that come out of my mouth.

And what about half dollars, those big half dollars with Ben on one side and the liberty bell on the other?  Cool or what?  They just don't make money like they used to.

I don't understand your IRA.  Is it actual stocks, or some kind of mutual fund?  If you are taking out a thousand a month is that replenished by dividends or something?    The way to invest seems like to me, is to buy low and sell high, which it seems like you could tell when stocks are way too high and sell, and buy back again when they appear to be in a valley.  Not that I have ever tried anything like that.  I couldn't live like that, watching the stock ticker every day.  But then you say you are always watching it, so why do you do that if you are not into  buying or selling?

Trump is a personality type that I am sure you know well because they are all over, and I refer here to the big fucking asshole.  It's as simple as that.  He thinks he is the smartest guy in the world, and he probably doesn't even notice anybody else, and is certainly too unreliable to use in any plot.  There is some talk of republicans putting up a third party candidate if he wins.  If they somehow manage to avoid nominating him he will think they have treated him unfairly and will certainly run on a third party. 

Either way the big girl wins big, and likely we take back the Senate and there is some talk about even the house, and if we want to put Bern on the supreme court there is nothing you can do about it and you might as well get measured for the tux for your wedding to your gay dog. 

Or maybe something else might happen.