Your Money Or Your Life
Aside from being an impeachable offense, warrantless wire tapping didn’t seem too alarming to me because by the time they actually listen to all those calls and transcribe them, the Whigs or the Roundheads will be in power instead of the Know-Nothings.
Nor did data-mining seem to pose much of a threat, nor subpoenas for medical and library records. To be sure, it’s all very sinister and unconstitutional and certain to be condemned by posterity. And if the Evangelicals are right about divine justice, they’ll all fry in hell; but, beyond that, why worry about a bunch of blithering incompetents?
Well, more fool I. It turns out they know more about me than I do. For example, they know when I’ll die.
A stockbroker handling one of my IRAs sent me the IRS marching orders on how much I have to withdraw (and pay taxes on) each year; and there, in black and white, is a table showing that I have 26.5 years left. I’ll live to be 97-1/2, although to get there I have to give them money every year.
I’m supposed to add up my IRAs and divide the total by 26.5 to find out how much to withdraw and declare as income. If I beat all the odds and reach the age of 115, then the IRS says I’ll have 1.9 years left. And if by some miracle I reach that age in possession of a million dollars, I’m to divide that by 1.9, so then I have to withdraw — and declare as taxable income — $526,315.79.
They must look at that number and drool like a 115-year-old.
My only consolation is that their table stops at 115. The 1.9 applies at age 115 “and thereafter.” From then on, if you’re still in the Thereafter rather than the Hereafter, you just keep dividing by 1.9 every year.
Let’s call it 2, which for a doddering old fool is close enough to 1.9. No matter how many times you divide your dwindling net worth by 2, it never reaches zero. You can always try to get along on half of what’s left.
Unfortunately, the same principle applies to halfwits. No matter how much their brains shrink, what’s left is still running the asylum.
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