NAACP Convention, Pelosi's stuttered speech

You don't have to watch. A few seconds will do.

No sympathy.

Retire already. 

It's the perverse need for power that keeps her going even as she deteriorates right in front of our eyes.

This is the point where family members must take away the car keys. 

Or else, what the hell, stay grasping to power and we'll observe Trump make mincemeat out of you. And she'll be standing there stuttering. 

"Uh, eh, er, we should, er, um, talk about this in, er, er, er, primacy, piracy, privacy, private talk." 

I had an unrelated story on the tip of my tongue.

Hang on.

Um, er, eh.  

Oh!

I'm retired this month. 

It's all automatic. 

I'm doing okay but I think that I'll be doing even better.

I'm going to have to adjust my tax withholding lest it get out of hand.

If you're interested.

But only if.

Under disability Social Security has been paying less than I earned while working.

Disability insurance covered the gap. Merely about $400 a month.

The insurance company gleefully notified me they're ending in August. 

The FRB notified me through massive mailings intended to cover everyone on Earth whoever might have possibly worked at the FRB. Even in Chinese. I'm not kidding.

Some packages duplicated.

Like Joe's legal will document, out of the whole package only one little paragraph applies to me. While the rest is intensely interesting. 

I've been collecting points toward retirement this whole time as if I had been working. 

And I already had quite a lot of points. 

When I was working people would ask me "So, what do you do?" Then they'd ask, "How long have you been there?"

I'd go, "twenty-two years." 

And they'd go, "HOLY SHIT!" 

Nobody stays put that long. Everyone moves around a lot. 

But I was steady.

And now it's double that. 

So I'm vested to 100% and have been twenty years ago.

That means my retirement will match what I earned while working. Plus the SS that's just short of that. 

Mathematically, that's nearly twice what I earned while working. Short about $400 pre tax and deductions. 

I'm eager to see how this turns out.

They offered three choices.

1) A fixed sum each month. 

2) A lesser sum each month but with cost of living adjustments built in

3) A fixed amount that is offensively low. 

"Choice 3 is ridiculous. Who would pick that?" 

Someone who's terminally ill with extremely short life expectancy.

"Oh, some people pick that to pay off their house, travel the world, make an investment, those types of things."  

"It's not enough for anything like like that." 

Choice 1 and 2 make you bet on your life expectancy in actuarial terms. You literally bet on your life.

This is how insanely optimistic I am. I'm betting that I live a very long time. 

When all factors point against it. 

Fuck you, actuarial facts, I'm betting on life. 

Jesus told me to. 

Shut up. He did.

I prayed and he told me what to do.

I was a short prayer.

"Jesus, what should I do?"

     "Pick #2."

"Thank you, Jesus. Amen." 

His angels walk with me. Suffer with me every setback. They're optimistic. And they say, we intend to be with you to the end. The end that's far off. We have A LOT more suffering to do. The full sadness of life in which all your friends and family disappear and leave only you. We want to see you make new friends and pick up on the young family members until finally you leave them and then our earth-job is done. With you. We want this to go on for as long as it can.

So I chose #2. 

And a part of me thinks that's insane. I don't know how long it will take to catch up to the larger amount. I'm trusting my country will rise from stagnation and that I will live long enough to overtake the larger fixed figure. 

My friends thought this conundrum was hilarious. I thought maybe you might like it too. 

It's a very good set of choices. I thought it was all automatic. It took me by surprise. But it does force me to bet. Force us to bet. All of us. 

These bankers think of everything. It's just like them. 

Look at that key frame for the video. Nancy is clawing. She's clawing at life.