2.4+112+26.2 = ?

No, this isn't going to be another installment in my "Banker's Math" series. The numbers above are the lengths of segments in the annual Ironman Triathlon held in Kona, Hawai'i each year. Imagine swimming in the ocean as fast as you can for 2.4 miles, then without a break hopping on your bike and riding 112 miles, then (again without stopping), dropping your bike and running a 26.2-mile marathon. That's the Ironman and you can see why its name is appropriate.

Of the roughly 1,800 athletes who compete all but about 150 are amateurs ranging in age from mid-20's to 80 (!). The older athletes aren't competing realistically against the young pro's, but rather within their own age group. Not just anyone can enter the Hawai'i Ironman. With only a few exceptions, all athletes must have finished in the top of their age group in at least one qualifying triathlon in the last year.

This is truly an endurance test. The professional triathletes complete the race in about 8-9 hours. Most of the amateurs take 12 to 14 hours, with some going right up to the cutoff of 17 hours. Imagine 17 hours of constant physical effort !

In case you're wondering, I haven't done the race and never will (but thanks for thinking I might be capable of it). However, since my wife and I live in Kona, we volunteer most years to help put on the event. It is really quite an experience, one that I find very inspiring and rewarding.

One reason I like it is that our normally sleepy little tourist town is transformed for about a week each October into an international festival. The athletes come from over 50 countries, and besides hearing them speaking different languages, they are easy to spot -- just look for the slender hardbodies zooming around on their hi-tech bikes and effortlessly jogging up the steep streets. Another reason is that some of our volunteer duties give us an opportunity to meet athletes and talk with them one on one. This can be particularly rewarding and inspirational, because we learn that in many respects they (not the pros, those in the older age categories) are fairly ordinary -- they have families, jobs, financial worries, etc., just like the rest of us. But they are also very different in their level of commitment to a goal where the main reward is deeply personal and the sacrifice to reach that goal is tremendous.

It would be very wrong to conclude that what these people are doing doesn't benefit anyone but themselves. They provide a positive model of dedication and effort in an age where positive models are in short supply. Inspiring others is a benefit to society we should recognize and appreciate.

Take Two Aspirin and a Dose of Vitriol

I grew up watching conservative William F. Buckley Jr.’s “Firing Line.” Even though I wasn’t conservative, I was impressed by Buckley’s intellect and depth of knowledge, and by how he brought these into play during his debates with guests on the show. At the other end of the political spectrum was Howard Higman, one of my instructors at the University of Colorado, a sociologist who was at least as far left as Buckley was to the right. Higman’s “Firing Line” was the annual campus wide event he organized called the Conference on World Affairs . The conference brought together politicians, writers, artists, and intellectuals representing the entire ideological spectrum for a week of panel debates and discussions on current topics. The atmosphere was one of spirited, yet informed debate, where the best minds grappled with complex and important issues in a productive way, despite their ideological differences.

In stark contrast is our national “debate” over health care reform, which seems strangely disconnected from reality and from rational, informed deliberation. There have been false and exaggerated claims from all sides (see www.Factcheck.org for examples), but it is the emotional and hyperbolic behavior of the most vocal conservatives that concerns me the most. The most recent example of this was the outburst by Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina during President Obama’s address to congress concerning health care reform. Wilson yelled out “You lie!” when Obama stated that health care benefits would not be extended to illegal immigrants. Wilson quickly apologized, which is certainly to his credit. And it can be noted that other Presidents have also been heckled. But what concerns me is not only that Wilson was demonstrably wrong in his assertion (the current bill explicitly excludes illegal immigrants from receiving benefits), but that he was so vehement about it. Even more disturbing, many of his constituents in South Carolina endorsed both his behavior and his incorrect belief.

I’ve been puzzled over why this issue has been such fertile ground for emotional button-pushing tactics. After all, polls show that most Americans believe there is a real need for health care reform, and the issues of delivery, scope, and paying for it certainly could be approached calmly and rationally.

One suggestion offered recently by former President Jimmy Carter is that the vitriolic rejection of anything associated with President Obama is motivated by latent racism, by "an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president". The racism suggestion was quickly dismissed by President Obama himself , but I’m not so sure. It fits well with the view of Obama espoused by commentators like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh as a tyrant leading the country to ruin with his insidious hidden agendas and policies. Facts are replaced by fear in this kind of thinking.

Another suggestion is related but a bit broader and more complex. The reason many have resonated to the outburst by Joe Wilson, according to columnist Tim Rutten is that immigration is related to a number of other concerns: “Health care reform may be this month’s battleground, but immigration, abortion, gun control, separation of church and state, and jingoism decked out as patriotism are the articles of faith from which the talk-show right’s catechism derives. Immigration remains a particularly resonant issue because it touches on so many of this tendency’s sensitive nerves: racial anxiety, gnawing questions of national identity and a generalized sense of traditions under threat.”

Whatever the reasons, I really hope that the country can move beyond the fear-mongering and hyperbole that pervades much of the social, political, and economic issues facing us. I’m sure William F. Buckley Jr. would agree with me.....

So, What Do You DO All Day??

I’ve been retired for about 8 years. When I meet new people and reveal that fact I often get the same reaction from those who haven’t yet retired themselves – they will often be curious about “how is it?” or “do you like being retired?” Over the years I’ve come to a couple of conclusions about how to answer those kinds of questions.

First, I’ve found that it is important to note carefully the tone and wording of the questioner. Some people are intrigued in a positive way, and their question is motivated by a sincere interest in knowing all the fun/relaxing/fulfilling activities that they, too may look forward to when they retire. Others, though, ask the question more like “but, what do you DO all day?” – these seem to be challenging you to demonstrate that retirement isn’t just a boring way to pass the time until you die. They can’t seem to imagine a life without a career and are looking for verification that without one a person is pretty much worthless.

Second, I’ve learned that any honest attempt to describe one’s daily activities is almost surely going to sound like life is a string of trivial and vacuous events. But this is true at any time of life – retirement doesn’t necessarily change the superficial nature of the list. Indeed, I’ve sometimes wanted to turn the tables and ask “but what do YOU do all day?” Thinking back to my own working days, I’d have to list a lot of things I didn’t enjoy or feel fulfilled doing – many things I recall “having” to do and yet really disliking them very much, even though as an academic I had a very rich and rewarding career. And really, that’s a major difference – 90% of the things I do now I want to do.

Bottom line. Whatever you do all day, try to make your experience of it enriching and rewarding in a personal way. Note that my emphasis is on your experience, not on the activity itself. Even the most seemingly trivial thing can be rewarding if you freely choose to engage in it and if your mind is open to fully experiencing it. My answer, then, to what I do in retirement, is “I live every moment as fully and completely as I can. What about you?”

The Power of Negative Thinking

In my field of Social Psychology one of the most central principles is that people’s beliefs about themselves and others often have strong impacts on behavior. This can be a straight forward relationship, as when a person modifies their interaction with someone based on beliefs about the other’s characteristics – for instance, being guarded and reserved with someone we believe is untrustworthy.

More interesting, however, are instances where our beliefs have influences that are more subtle and indirect yet the outcome has significant consequences for our well-being. An example of this kind of phenomenon was reported in a recent article by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health and the National Institute on Aging. It caught my attention because... well, “aging” is getting to be a very personal thing.

The Yale group looked at the stereotypes people have about getting older – beliefs such as “old people are helpless” or “old people can’t learn new things.” Stereotypic beliefs are conveyed in a variety of ways in any given culture, most often through depictions in films, books, news stories, and broadcast media. Different cultures have different views of aging, of course – in some societies the aged are revered as sources of cultural heritage and wisdom while in others (our own, certainly) the aged are seen in primarily negative terms that center on losing physical and mental abilities. It is important to remember that stereotypes are not accurate representations of a group of people, but rather are exaggerations of qualities or outright fabrications of qualities.

The researchers examined an interesting and important question: “Does a younger person’s belief in negative aging stereotypes influence that person’s health as they themselves get older?” It is easy to imagine at least two possibilities here. First, if somebody believes in a negative notion of what it means to get older, they might develop health habits (high fat diet and lack of exercise, for example) that in fact lead to poorer health. On the other hand, having a negative view of aging might motivate a person to adopt habits that are widely held to prolong youth – strenuous exercise, diet supplements, plastic surgery — at least some of which may actually contribute to a healthier life as the person ages.

To answer their question the researchers turned to a large data base that has been accumulating for many years, the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging that was begun over forty years ago. In the 1960's a large group of young volunteers were given a battery of mental and physical tests, and these have been repeated at regular intervals as the individuals have gotten older. Included in the psychological measures was an assessment of the strength of each person’s belief in negative aging stereotypes. The physical measures of health included cardiovascular events such as angina attacks, congestive heart failures, myocardial infarctions, strokes, etc.

The results were clear and rather sobering. Younger individuals who held more negative age stereotypes were twice as likely (25%) to have a cardiovascular event over the next 30 years of their lives than those with more positive beliefs (13%). This relationship held even when the researchers controlled for other possible differences between the two groups when they were young. These included many things that are known risk factors for cardiovascular events: elevated blood pressure, family history of cardiovascular death, body mass index, depression, education, gender, marital status, number of chronic conditions, race, self-rated health, serum total cholesterol (milligrams per deciliter), and smoking history. These factors were not as good at predicting cardiovascular problems as the negative stereotypes people held.

The study raises a number of interesting questions that I’m sure the researchers are now trying to answer. For example, how do these individual differences in negative views of aging arise? Can the they be changed and if so, how? What behaviors did the negative beliefs engender that made the cardiovascular problems more likely? Can they be changed?

As we wait for the answers there is one thing that is a clear lesson from this study. Beware the power of negative thinking.


Reference: Age Stereotypes Held Earlier in Life Predict Cardiovascular Events in Later Life.
Becca R. Levy, Alan B. Zonderman, Martin D. Slade, and Luigi Ferrucci. Psychological Science, Volume 20, Issue 3, Pages 296-298.

Why I Need a New GPS

We all know the old adage about how men never ask for directions. It has something to do with the fragile male ego and being macho, and is probably rooted in some evolutionary trait left over from hunting mastedons. I recently experienced the modern version of this when my wife and I went hiking on some new trails near where we live.

I took along my trusty Garmin Etrax Topo GPS unit. GPS devices are part of the personal technology revolution, right in there with IPODs, cell phones, digital cameras, dvrs, and humongous flat screen tvs. In short, part of the golden age of guy toys. There are GPS devices for cars which make it possible for men not only to avoid asking for directions, but also to actually avoid getting lost. There are also the kind I took on my hike – small, hand-held units that show you the terrain, let you track your path, record your distance traveled, and find your way back to the starting point.

The trail we were following had been described to us but we had no map. We had to rely on rather vague explanations when we came to choice points because there were no signs indicating which way to go. And of course I had my trusty GPS. The route we were trying to follow was a loop that – theoretically – returned us to our car, which we had parked on a road at the trail head.

Things went smoothly for several miles, and my GPS indicated that we were indeed circling back toward the starting point. As we got closer and closer (and more and more tired), I was absolutely sure we were nearer and nearer our car and I knew exactly how to get there, based on the readings from the GPS. But then we came to a choice point where logic and common sense confronted male ego and male techno-worship. By this time we were on a road that was supposed to intersect the road on which we had parked the car. Going one way would take us to the car, according the GPS. However, going in the opposite direction seemed like the logical choice. I insisted on following the GPS. My wife opted for logic. After some increasingly heated exchanges I offered to let her stay while I walked to the car (my way) and then drove back to pick her up.

After I walked alone for another 1/4 mile it became clear from the GPS that the car was located in the middle of a large tree, making it somewhat difficult to drive. I backtracked and together my wife and I walked in the opposite direction, arriving in short order at the car, precisely where we had left it. The GPS was WRONG (the words stick in my throat).

There are probably good reasons why the unit was inaccurate in this situation. But the lesson isn’t simply that you should always trust your senses (common and otherwise) rather that technology – there are too many cases where people have been fooled by faulty perceptions and sensations, sometimes with disastrous results. But trusting technology too much can be problematic too, as my story illustrates. We need to temper our reliance on technology with careful, prudent analysis.

But most important, I need to buy a new GPS.

Banker's Math: Part Trois

I’ve written about this twice before in blogs about refinancing our mortgage and about bank charges for free services. A recent incident with my credit card (none other than Citibank) prompts yet another rant now.

My wife and I recently traveled to Australia. Some of the hotel arrangements were prepaid through Travelocity (prepaying is often cheaper, so it can be a good deal if you’re sure your plans won’t change). In going over my credit card statement after we returned, however, I noticed that one of the hotels charged us for the room even though it was prepaid. They must have caught their error, however, because a couple of weeks later the charge was reversed. No problem, right?

Wrong.

The erroneous charge was made in Australian dollars. Citibank graciously converted this to U.S. dollars — for a 3% “foreign transaction fee.” The 3% was calculated on the U.S. dollar amount. This is irritating enough, but it gets much worse. During the several weeks after the erroneous charge the Australian dollar became stronger against the U.S. dollar so that when the hotel reversed the charge for the same # of Australian dollars, the refund in U.S. currency was less than the original amount. Let me emphasize this – the reversed charge after conversion was less than the original charge, and we are out the difference. In other words, WE paid for the HOTEL’S mistake. Now for the kicker – Citibank refunded the foreign transaction fee, but recalculated it on the new U.S. dollar amount. Got it? Citibank PROFITED from the hotel’s mistake and we got screwed twice!

To be fair, I guess this whole thing might have worked to our advantage if the U.S. dollar had gotten stronger during the interim between the erroneous charge and the refund. But I just bet that buried somewhere in the fine print of the 30+ page contract with Citibank there is a clause that says if the exchange goes in the client’s favor then the excess will be nullified. The real point, though, is that the refunds for both the hotel’s error and Citibank’s conversion fee should be the same in U.S. dollars as the amount initially charged, regardless of whether the exchange rate goes up or down.

Anything else is Banker’s Math.

Banker's Math: Part Deux

In an earlier blog I described the delightful process of refinancing our mortgage. A few days ago we received an offer from our bank that prompts me to offer a follow up.

The offer was for us to pay the mortgage every two weeks instead of the usual once per month, with each payment being ½ the usual monthly amount. Why, you ask would this be to our benefit? The enticement was that over the course of a year this would amount to 26 payments, the equivalent of 13 monthly payments. That extra payment over the course of the loan would save a considerable amount in interest and result in paying off the loan more quickly.

Now for the fine print. For helping us save all this money, the bank would assess a service charge for each payment, and a one-time start up fee of $299. Cha-ching! Plus, of course, the bank receives more money sooner, which allows it to invest, loan out, pay executive bonuses, etc., etc. Keep in mind, the terms of our mortgage allow additional principal payments at any time for free – if you pay them an additional amount each month it will accomplish the same thing without incurring any charges at all.

The bank’s offer is now confetti at the bottom of my shredder.