White Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics

Mark Twain's famous quote about the three kinds of lies is one of those undeniable folksy truisms that stands the test of time.

If you read this entire article, I promise by the end you will be able to find at least five major errors in almost every article and newscast that quotes statistics, and be able to invalidate all the misinformation you are being fed, to the amazement and delight of your friends and family.

You are being manipulated, and what follows is precisely how it is being done.

It is safe to say most people in the world have not been trained to reason statistically.  It is an arcane branch of mathematics, and includes such things as demography, public health, political science, and media ratings.  It is for the latter reason that I was forced into a Statistical Reasoning class at university, as part of my Communications degree.

It came in handy for a significant part of my career, where I spent several years writing, producing and editing medical videos for major hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.  In the course of that work, I had to digest medical statistics and express them in terms that lay people could grasp, and as they say, the best way to learn something is to teach it.

When analyzing statistical results, one must have a baseline or control group, a representative sample in both size and demographic representation, and a great many controls on the methods of data collection and analysis.

It should be noted that in some cases, it is impossible to establish a baseline or control group, such as climatology, where the sample is the entire lifespan of Earth.  In these cases, the rules for gathering and analyzing data are even more stringent and the process much more complex.

In short, how you ask the question, and how you interpret the answers are vital to receive a usable result.  Statistics can be an invaluable tool to discover truth, but they can also be a horrific weapon to hide it.  How one randomizes a sample across dozens of variables to ensure a truly representative group is a very complex and tricky process.  It is wide open  to accidental and intentional bias.

A good study will tell the reader sample size and methodology by which the sample was determined, as well as the exact question(s) and methods used to collect the data.

A valid study will produce a value called a, or alpha, and one called p, or p-value.  These are probability tests that determine whether the original question, or hypothesis, was valid.  Both these numbers will be between 0 and 1, with 1 being absolute certainty, and 0 being the "null" hypothesis.  You should never see a value of 1 in any statistics, since absolute certainty is impossible in REAL science.

Alpha is the level of confidence in the validity of a test.  In other words, this number measures the objectivity of a test design.  A value of >0.05 for alpha is the standard that good studies shoot for, which is better than 95% probability of the hypothesis being true.

P-value measures the randomness of a phenomenon.  A low p-value tells us the probability that a test is free of bias, and that the phenomenon was not caused by the test or the person collecting the data.

In the end, if p is less than or equal to a, then we can be fairly confident that a phenomenon is real and that our guess about what causes it is accurate.  Remember that we can never achieve absolte certainty.  At best, we can only be "pretty damn sure".

In any case, the margin of error is vital to analyzing statistics.  Through a series of calculations involving sample size, test design and other variables, we arrive at the error rate.  This will always be a plus/minus value, telling us for any data point, the actual number could be within a range, such as +/-3%.  On a graph, this will create the famous "candlestick" result, with lines extending up and down from a point showing the full range of error.

The next three tools we need to analyze statistics are the mean, median and mode.  This is where statistics get fun, and often where the bullshit factor can be found.  This is precisely why these three values are also almost never reported in any news report citing statistics.

A statistical mean is simply the dead center of the data, with an equal number of points being above and below that value.  The primary problem with this number is that a sampling error can mistakenly shift the mean up or down.  Thus, the median can be more useful.


The median is a range of values that tells us where the average middle is, versus the average extremes.  In other words, mean income would be the center point of all incomes everywhere, while the median range tells us what constitutes the "middle class".  As a rule of thumb, the median is typically the middle 50% of all results, with the 25% extreme groups on either side.

The mode is most easily understood as the most likely answer to any question in data collection.  The mode is normally an a priori assumption that tests the randomness of a sample.  If the results do not match the mode, then there is a problem with the test design or the way the question is asked.

When you are told about polling results, climate models or health information, and these values/tools are not revealed, then you can rest assured that everything you are being told is complete and utter bullshit.  Without knowing the sample size, margin of error, mean, median and mode for any result or graph, then there is no way to analyze the objectivity and significance of the results.  It is meaningless noise without the tools.

The GeezerMedia feed on the ignoance of the masses by showing lots of pretty graphs and spiffy animations, and sometimes they might even include the sample size and margin of error, just to hook those with a bit more sophistication.  However, if we are not told the alpha, p-value and mode, there is no way for us to gauge the objectivity of the questions asked, nor the probability of the result being correct and/or in any way real.

The final Big Lie with statistics is the way in which the results are graphed.  How the data is visually laid out has a lot to do with how they relate to reality and our perception of the results.

The first thing we should always look at when confronted with a graph is whether the axes start at zero and contain the full range of possibilities.  In other words, a graph of a political poll must show all possible choices/candidates on the X-axis, and the total number of potential voters on the Y-axis.  If not, the graph is meaningless and likely hiding something from you, or manipulating your perception of the results.

Any graph that does not have a zero or null point is complete garbage and should be ignored with prejudice.

If one zooms in on part of the data for greater clarity and detail, there must be break marks in the x, y and z axes, and in any case all the axes must start at zero.  It must also follow a complete graph so that the perspective is not lost.  In every case where zero is not shown, someone is trying to pass off a giant load of bullshit by exaggerating the relevance of the information.

This is where nearly all graphs of climate data fail - usually on purpose.  For instance, if temperature data is not graphed with the X-axis showing all of Earth's existence, and the Y-axis showing ALL possible temperatures on Earth, then the perceived relevance of any rise or fall is completely warped.

So, how does all of this help us right now?  Glad you asked.

Statistics have been pawned off on the general public as being definitive measures of political moods, climate change and health information.  In nearly every case I have ever seen, much less this year, nearly every aspect of statistical analysis is violated.  All of the above-listed tools must me present with every single study or it is just bullshit - eye candy, fear mongoring or deliberate misinformation.

One particularly good example of bullshit statistics is the Real Clear Politics graph of the spread between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.  If you look at the bottom left corner of the graph, the first value is 40, not zero.  Then we notice that all of the possible candidates for president and their results are not listed on the X-axis, and the total possible votes are not given on the Y-axis.

What we are given is a percentage, but no table of real numbers from which the percentages are calculated, and in any case, the Y-axis does not go to 100%.

Therefore, the visual impression is that the spread is enormous, whereas the real numbers are essentially the same on a full scale.  Also, without the error range (candlesticks), we cannot see the full range of probabilities and the overlap (if any) of the results.

The graph makes it look like Biden has a significant lead, but if we assume a margin of error of 3%, then Biden is at 46.6, and Trump at 45.6, which is about as close to a dead heat as one can get.

We also have a total result of 92.2% out of a possible 100%.  Where's the other 7.8%?  Is it rounding error, other candidates, 'none of the above' answers?  That's a significant amount of missing data.

Furthermore, we must assume that the Y axis has a total possible value of 100, without voting fraud.  If the graph began at zero and ended at 100, the two lines would be visually the same, even without the margin of error.

We also note that the graph is based on the Poll of Polls below it.  Here we see that sample sizes are between 800 and 4,000, out of a potential base of 140 million (one doesn't even have this information), and the margins of error range from 2% to 4%.  Furthermore, we know nothing about how the samples were taken, or whether the polls all used the same criteria.

For all we know, this graph is a puree of apples and oranges.  In fact, we know this is true because some of the polls used Likely Voters (LV), some used Registered Voters (RV), some used both, and some used general opinion.

Nowhere on the page are we told the alpha, p-value, median, mean, or mode values.  We don't know what the exact questions were, how they match up across the polls, how well the a priori assumptions matched the actual results, or whether the probabilities have any relation to reality.

Even more basic than the analysis tools is the method by which the data were obtained.  What is the baseline?  How were the questions worded (bias - are you voting for Joe Biden or one of the other guys)?  How was the sample randomized - bias in geography (all in New York, urban/rural), demography (all Democrats, all atheists), etc,?  How were the results obtained - in-person, telephone, internet, etc.?  Do these criteria match across all polls used to obtain the final result?  Did they all use the same criteria for randomizing the samples?  Each variable introduces a bias that must be addressed.

In other words, this entire page is bullshit and completely worthless for analysis.

Let's look at another headline stealer that truly needs some objectivity - SARS-COV-2.

To begin with, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has admitted that the process for collecting data concerning deaths from the virus have been flawed.  Their criteria have not been consistent, and thus the results are at best questionable and the probabilities are highly skewed.

More than that, let's examine some of the underlying assumptions of the whole issue:

• First, what are the criteria and methods for determining that the virus exists at all?
• Second, what are the criteria and methods for determining the symptomology and associating it with this particular virus?
• Third, what are the design and analyses that underlie the validity of any of the tests for this virus?
• Fourth, what are the criteria and methods for determining the effectiveness of social distancing, masks, vaccines, treatments, etc.?
• Fifth, what is the baseline or control group value used to determine the validity of any tests (p-value)?

These questions are very important.  Since testing has never been done on the scale now being attempted, how do we know the results are not perfectly average in any given year?  What is the average result for mass testing for corona viruses?  If we don't know that data, then there is no way to know whether the current results are in any way unusual, and thus we have no way to tell if there is a real pandemic, whether the SARS-COV-2 virus is causing it, or whether the virus exists in the first place.

In addition, do the tests discriminate between the seven types of corona viruses that we consider "normal" or known (common cold, etc.).  I have found no data that shows any of the tests discriminate between types of corona virus.  In fact, the PCR test commonly used only amplifies DNA traces, and has no ability to separate ANY virus from another.

There are literally thousands of variables and assumptions nested one inside the other to claim that the world is under a pandemic situation.  Everything from electron microscopy and DNA/RNA analysis, to confidence in test results, protective measures and treatments is wide open for debate.  Recall that statistics can never produce absolute certainty, and every assumption or variable has its own level of uncertainly, compounded on all the others.

Telling us something is true is not equivalent to showing us, using all the above criteria to analyze the results.  Saying the issue is vulnerable to bias and corruption is a vast understatement.

Real science, be it political polling, virology and medicine, or climatology are all open for debate at all times.  At the very best, statistics provide us with a level of confidence that we see a real cause-and-effect phenomenon, but we can never obtain 100%.  It's impossible.  Even an alpha of 0.01% still has doubt, no matter how much we want to believe it is absolute truth.

In research as complicated as political polling and virology, we only need to prove one case that does not follow the results to disprove the whole argument.  If the results do not match every single instance of reality and predict future outcomes in every case, then the underlying assumptions are wrong.

In the case of political polling, the results of the Trump v. Clinton election tell us there is an underlying inherent flaw in the methodology, whether is is bias or structural.  With SARS-COV-2, we are told that its RNA is 75% similar to SARS-COV-1, but how do we know that (sample, methods, etc.)?  There are enough holes in both arguments to make the results look like Swiss cheese.

Always keep this in mind: to be in any way valid and true, every use of statistics must tell you the sample size and origin, the alpha and p-value, the median, mean and mode, and any accompanying graphs must start at zero and show the total possible causes (X-axis) and total possible effects (Y-axis) in the set being studied (total voters, total cases, etc.).  If any one of these elements is missing, you are being intentionally lied to or accidentally misled, pure and simple.  There are no exceptions.

To paraphrase the American philosopher William James, if you want to disprove the rule that all crows are black, you need only to produce one crow that is not.

Now return to the graph at top, which was actually published in an article about climate change, and see how many errors you can find.

Doublethink In The Days Of The Comet

The very nature of being social is coming together as a physical group.  The concept of "social distancing" is thus one of the most Orwellian Doublethink terms I have ever seen.  It's right up there with "peacekeeper missile".

Social distancing, to my mind, is even more distasteful than the term "social media," in which no one has physical proximity, and thus cannot be "social" in any normal sense of the word.

While I find the term "herd immunity" disgustingly distasteful when referring to human beings, I nevertheless can't help but see the inherent contradiction of promoting group shared immunity while forcing people to avoid groups.  More of that wonderful Doublethink.

For those dwindling few who still have not read George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Google oracle defines Doublethink as "the acceptance of or mental capacity to accept contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time, especially as a result of political indoctrination."  If the current Fauci Flu Plandemic isn't a glaring example of this phenomenon, then none can be found.

Even as recently as when I was parenting, the practice of putting all the kids in a room with one who had chicken pox or mumps was a common practice.  The children would thus exchange the viruses and develop life-long immunity to those relatively common childhood maladies.  This was also done with influenza and other seasonal discomforts.

Many people are under the mistaken belief that the practice of immunology began with the creation of the polio vaccine by Jonas Salk, in the 1950s.  The concept of inoculation has a long and storied history using some distasteful methods to our modern minds, but effective nevertheless.

The practice of inoculation, or variolation as it is referred to now, came to the attention of the Anglosphere in the 1800s, when British doctors brought the practice back from India, and added it to Edward Jenner's own work in this area.

Inoculation involved rubbing the pus from smallpox sores into pin pricks in the skin of healthy people to generate antibodies to the disease.  Louis Pasteur had the bright idea of using a relatively harmless virus called cowpox to achieve the same result.  To Westerners, the concept is just 200 years old, but in India, the practice had been used for at least a millennium, and not just for smallpox.

The idea of "herd immunity," or what I prefer to call "community immunity," is an ancient idea.  One imagines the practice evolving out of animal husbandry and inoculating one's farm animals by placing them all in the same barn and letting Darwinism run its course.

What was new to the 19th century was the idea of microbes being the cause of disease.  Humans intuitively understood that proximity spread disease, but thanks to Aristotle, could not conceive of an unseen creature jumping person to person.  It wasn't until Zacharias Janssen developed the microscope in the 16th century that humans could conceive of anything smaller than the width of a hair.

Janssen's fellow Dutchman Antonie van Leeuwenhoek ran with the microscope's new revelations and created the entire science of microbiology.  He was the first to posit that these tiny creatures were the culprits in spreading disease, and not the mythical unbalanced humours that required bleeding out patients.  It seemed logical, he thought, that inoculating healthy people with the pus of sick people was in fact using these tiny creatures against themselves.

The idea of quarantining sick people is far older.  The use of leper colonies dates back thousands of years, and was also used for a number of diseases in both farm animals and humans.  Isolating the sick is probaably one of the oldest forms of medical practices and seems almost intuitive or instinctual.

All this being said, the idea of isolating the entire population of the planet to fight what amounts to a severe cold or flu was developed in AD2020.  Never in the history of humanity has anyone thought to quarantine every single human being on Earth in order to fight a disease.  In fact, the very idea flies in the face of common sense - though certainly no one ever accused the political classes of possessing such innate reasoning capabilities.

First off, someone needs to produce the necessities that maintain both the sick and the well in society - an idea that seems to have escaped the Powers That Were.

Furthermore, having those individuals who aren't sick roaming around would seem to spread whatever immunity they naturally possess, even if that immunity is little more than good fortune.  After all, they are apparently doing something right and should be emulated, insofar as they don't later become ill themselves.  Either way, it's a learning experience for all of us.


The very idea of global social and economic shutdown as a means to fight an illness is itself the most vile example of Doublethink ever devised.  The whole concept places the entire human race at risk of starvation and economic ruin in order to prevent some small fraction of humanity from getting sick.

Even more absurd is the notion that isolating those who have survived the virus, thus depriving the rest of us from sharing their immunity.

Immune systems develop and harden through contact with the outer world.  We pick up viruses and bacteria by the millions in just an average day, rubbing them into our eyes, sinuses and mouths with completely automatic motions.  It's almost as if our deeper minds are trying to ingest as many pathogens as possible for target practice.

Those of us who still consume the Geezer Media are literally being conditioned to deny our common sense and thousands of years of human experience.  We are being told that vaccines are cures, which they most definitely are not.  We are being told that we must wait in isolation for community immunity to kick in, which defies logic.  We are being flooded with insane ideas that we know are wrong, but that we must believe at the point of a gun.

Classic Doublethink.

When what we instinctively know to be true is contradicted by the politically motivated messaging of our supposed authorities, it is our sacred duty - both to ourselves and our species - to ignore those edicts en masse and get back to the business of living.

We are each given a finite time in this life and we are literally being robbed of it by actors who are self-serving liars.  We know that in our hearts, but we must elevate that knowledge to our conscious minds and take action based on it.

If one prefers to live in fear and huddle in one's cave until madness or starvation takes the only real possession we have, then so be it.  But to inflict fear on others in order to rob them of their lives is a crime so heinous, so despicable, so egregious that to not fight back is itself a crime - one of acquiescence to evil.

Doublethink is a cognitive virus that has infected us all at some level.  Like any other virus, we must isolate it  and mobilize antibodies against it.

The real threat to our health is in our minds, not our bodies.

In The Days Of The Comet

UPDATE: Almost forgot Comet 2I/Borisov

Well, here we are in the thick of a global shutdown over a virus that appears to be less virulent than the annual flu.  The world, to speak in gross generalities, seems to have gone completely off the reservation.  It looks to me, from my little perch under the stairs somewhere in the middle of one of the largest cities in Asia, that the whole thing is a case of fear porn gone viral, to indulge in a pun.

In a supreme, perhaps divine irony, it seems now that cigarette smokers may be among the least infected demographic groups.  As if we are living out Woody Allen's Sleeper, the French are distributing nicotine patches to reduce infection rates.  A big middle finger to all you shamers.

Some folks have inquired as to why I refer to this situation as "the days of the comet."  As with most things I write, there are multiple layers of meaning and intent, not the least of which is I happen to like comets.

At the most superficial layer, there are several comets making a run at the inner solar system just now.  2019 Y4 ATLAS is on a hyperbolic orbit, imlying it has come from outside our realm.  It has also crumbled to dust on approach to the Sun and may vanish altogether.  Then, there's 2017 T2 PanSTARRS, which was discovered when it flared up around the orbit of Saturn - an unusual behavior for a supposed dirty ice ball, but expected for a negatively charged body hitting the Sun's proton "wind".  Then, there's our old friend Enke, which hangs out around the inner solar system and appears every few years.  There's also a number of others still out beyond Jupiter that should arrive later in the year.

None of this is unusual.  There are roughly a dozen comets making runs at any given time.

At the next layer, we encounter one of my favorite authors, H. G. Wells.  Wells published a book in 1906 called, "In The Days of the Comet," in which the Earth is affected by a huge passing comet.  the interaction causes all the nitrogen in the atmosphere to convert to a breathable gas that in turn leads to a new Golden Age on the planet, called the Great Change.  I fancy we may be seeing something like that going on now, as 7 billion people slowly get angry enough to lamp-post the presumptive Masters.

It is curious to note at this point that Uranus entered Taurus last year, which has signaled massive changes on Earth when it happened in the 1770s, 1850s and 1930s.

Comets have long been considered omens of great events.  Whether the omens or good or bad is completely subjective, of course.  In 1066, Halley's Comet (700 years before Halley named it) made a particularly notable run through the inner solar system.  The British came to see it as a particularly bad omen, while the French saw it as a harbinger of great tidings.  This probably has a lot to do with William the Conqueror taking over the British Isles and beheading Harold II in London.

The Chinese, too, came to see the 1066 comet as a bad omen, since it kicked off a particularly rough period during the Song Dynasty.

On the next layer, I have a memory implanted by my great aunt Laetitia, or Tish as everyone called her.  In 1910, she was 12 years old when the Great Halley's Panic occured.  For those unaware, the Earth passed through Halley's Comet's tail in 1910.  A French (of course) astronomer noticed that spectragraphs of the tail revealed a fair amount of cyanogen gas, a deadly poison.  Well, as you can imagine, this set off a worldwide panic, with snake-oil salesmen peddling anti-comet pills and folks building bunkers against the end of times.  At the critical moment, my great aunt's mother dragged her daughter under the bed to hide, and told Tish to, "Pray, Laetitia, pray We're all going to die!"  To which my great aunt replied, "Why do we need to pray if we're all going to die?"

I take this as a sign that critical thinking runs in my genes.

Thus, I have come to think of these times as The Days of the Comet, because there are comets, this may be the beginning of a new Golden Age, and the panic is completely contrived by fear porn peddlers.

Here in Jakarta, we've been on lock-down for a month.  To their credit, the Indonesians find ignoring laws to be great fun and a national pastime.  In fact, they have done such a wonderful job of ignoring the government, that now the president has announced that mudik is cancelled.  Mudik means "exodus" and refers to the national holiday at the end of Ramadhan, where millions of people return to their native villages for feasting and reunion, not unlike the American holiday of Thanksgiving.

To enforce the anti-mudik rule, the Prez has threatened to lock down all entry and exit from the city, using the military to barricade the exits.  Essentially, we are under martial law.  Seems rather dacronian, since the entire country of 320 million people have had just 6,000 confirmed cases and 600 deaths "reported" as COVID-19.

In any event, I expect the riots to start sooner than later.  The second most enjoyed pastime in Indonesia is rioting, especially when it's paid for by various political interests.

My neighborhood is much quieter than usual.  Except for the ubiquitous door-to-door salesmen pushing bread, noodles, and meatball soup, the only real activity are the hordes of motorcycle delivery men rushing goods hither and yon from online purchases.

We get several boxes a day, primarily my wife ordering a dizzying array of Chinese herbal remedies and vitamins, and me restocking the bar.  There's an entire ritual to it, where the delivery man drops it on the doorstep, my wife suits up in homemade PPE, soaks the package in sanitizer, opens the outer package outside, then carefully removes the contents and rushes them inside for more dousing.

Of course, if I receive the delivery, I just take it from the guy, give a small tip for braving the elements, tear open the package and leave the trash outside, then pour a big fat Gin Tonic to ward off any viruses or parasites that may be lurking within.

And yes, I firmly believe that hydroxichloroquine is worth having around the house.  No, not because Trump touts it (I heard about it a week before Trump did), but because I am a firm believer that something which may work now is worth far more than a dozen possible vaccines next year sometime.  And yes, I have enough zinc tablets and azythromycin to cure an entire army.

However, I rest assured that my intake of vast quantities of Gin Tonic will do just fine as a palliative of first resort.  Hey, if it was good enough for the British occupying forces in India in the 1800s, it's good enough for me.

In any case, I am prepared for what I consider to be the two most likely outcomes; 1) the Supreme Hoax that is the COVID Scare of 2020 will be exposed soon and the lynchings will begin shortly thereafter; or 2) this is a devilish bioweapon that will sweep the globe for years to come, killing millions if not billions.  Whichever manifests itself, I am mentally prepared to deal with it

Whether Nancy Pelosi becomes the historical echo of Marie Antoinette, or we end up living out the movie Omega Man (with me as the gin-swilling Charlton Heston character), I am prepared to observe the proceedings with all the mirth and irony of Falstaff, and the sardonic snipes of George Carlin.

In the meantime, I shall remain supremely amused at humanity's eternal quest for self-annihilation.  for some reason, our species seems grotesquely fixated on doom, and I for one cheer its impending arrival.  Whether Nature has thrown an evolutionary curve ball at us, or the Slimy Bastards have unleashed their final act on us, the outcome should be highly entertaining.

And so, in the Days of the Comet, I remain the observer of all that is insane.  The chronicler of last resort, if you will.

Ride A Wooden Horse

If you don't follow Chinese astrology, then you may not be aware that this is the Yang Wood Horse year.  If you are a Westerner, you probably have visions of carousels and those little nickel rides in front of the drugstore.  Of course, that assumes you are an old fart Westerner, I suppose, since visions like that don't exist any more.

It's not quite that simple.

The horse is a fire sign and wood obviously feeds fire.  Yang light casts a positive spin on things and enhances them, but things can get out of control.

This year is liable to see extreme weather (continuing) and lots of health problems, especially with the stomach and gut.  Look for outbreaks of stomach flu in general populations and bouts of indigestion on an individual basis.

The wood part implies strong and fast growth, which can be good for some things, like spiritual awakenings, but can be bad in socio-political situations (read Ukraine, etc.).  Explosive growth can also mean weak foundations and poor construction.  Trees that grow very fast tend to have shallow roots and fall over easily in storms.

And we are in for some storms.  Yang Wood Horse years are known for wars.  The last one in 1954, saw the defeat of France in Vietnam, which ultimately led to the US Vietnam War and the socio-political upheaval in the US commonly called the 60s. On the positive side, the 60s were known for bursts of creativity, but as we have seen, many of the movements that began in that era were shallow and have withered over time.

In this year of the Yang Wood Horse, efforts to expand one's spiritual life will see the return of immediate and rapid results.  The nobility of the Horse will tend to make these efforts positive and beneficial, but one should take care to ensure that things don't get out of hand and "lose the name of action".

What we can likely expect this year is:

• late cold blasts in the northern hemisphere;
• soggy, cool cummer in many places;
• wars and conflicts;
• a protracted and severe outbreak of intestinal flu;
• a rapid spiritual awakening of large numbers of people;
• greater efforts to live more harmoniously on a personal level.

 It's not going to be an easy year, but if folks are aware of the esoteric forces affecting the world around us, we can control and focus those forces in positive ways.  If not, then we are in for some nasty conflicts.

All in all, we can sum up the year as being one of having an energetic horse by the tail.  We can either learn to control and marshal the horse's strengths into positive focus, with the aid of a positive bias on our side, or we can let it get out of hand and end up with a stampede of events that will surely run us over.

Or it's all superstitious bullshit and we shouldn't pay it any mind.

I subscribe to the notion that astrology has some foundation in fact and science, though it's been covered over with hocus-pocus for a long time.  I tend to take the themes more seriously than the particulars, so I'm ready for some upheavals and health issues going forward.

Happy happy!

The Golden Years

I've had a couple of friends ask me about retiring in Indonesia. Can it be done? What is the cost of living? Will my retirement income cover my needs? The answers are, "Yes." Indonesia offers cheap living, diverse cultural and natural attractions and a native population that is generally receptive. Prices given assume an exchange rate of Rp.10,000/$1.

For the purposes of illustration, I will use one friend who receives a military pension and Social Security (USA). His total income per month is roughly $4,000.

As far as living expenses, he could take a decent apartment, fully furnished with basic appliances, centally located to shopping and entertainment, with pool, workout room, steam room, 24-hour security (key card and live guards). Cost for a one-year, prepaid contract is around $2,500. Water and electric, plus security and maintenance fees are additional, so that total expense would be about one month's income for the entire year.

He could add a full-time maid for about $50/month and food for both (3 meals a day cooked at home) would be in the range of $60/month. Five gallons of drinking water per week is about average will take about $1.50/week. A cab ride from one end of Jakarta to the other in average traffic runs about $10. The highest I have ever seen in 2 years is $20. A very nice dinner out, with steak and wine for two, runs about $100.

If you live within your means and don't do a lot of clubbing or spend a lot of time at bars, this friend could live nicely for two months of his income per year. That leaves 10 months for savings or travel. Jakarta is central to pretty much anything in Asia. In about 3-4 hours, you can be in Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Shanghai, Taipei, Perth, Melbourne, and Manila. That doesn't even include such local attractions as Bali, Manado and Batam. Discount travel is available on airlines such as Air Asia, or the flagship carrier Garuda Air offers excellent service, all with new aircraft. Prices are extremely reasonable, with discounts and special offers frequently available.

Health care in Indonesia is ridiculously cheap, by American standards, and the quality is reasonable, with many physicians speaking English and having been trained in Western countries. The average doctor's visit runs about $18, plus medications, which average about 1/3 the price of US. Most major cities have at least one world-class health center. Additionally, you can avail yourself of traditional Asian medicine, such as acupuncture and herbal medicine, as well as cheap and widely available traditional massage. A full-body traditional massage runs about $4.50 for 2 hours.

Jakarta has an excellent English-language newspaper, The Jakarta Post, with daily deliver (except major holidays) running about $12/month. The also are a plethora of entertainment magazines with reviews and entertainment news, all in English.

If you prefer to buy an apartment or house, things get a bit more complex, but the prices are extremely attractive. Recent changes in Indonesian law allow foreigners to purchase apartments or houses, however you can not buy the land under them. An apartment starts at about $10,000 and goes up quickly. You can purchase these using payments but make sure you vet the contract carefully. Retaining local legal assistance is recommended if you are buying, both for negotiating and to ensure the paperwork is in order. A house starts at roughly the same level, but the prices go up a lot slower as the size increases. Your best option is a new-build, but you will have to look on the outskirts of town, and newly developed areas don't always have full amenities, but they will come in time. Many apartment towers are like self-contained cities with everything you could want without leaving the complex. Housing areas are a little more spread out, but in Indonesia you can get almost anything delivered to your door. It just takes a little initial homework and little leg-work to get it all set up.

Other items include a fairly good cell phone network with a dizzying number of choices, internet access that is quickly improving and a long tradition of handcrafts and textiles. A custom-made, silk batik shirt with inner lining, long sleeves, breast pocket, and meticulously matched pattern, will set you back about $30.

Of course, there are many other considerations, which you can find already addressed in this blog or in coming posts. The biggest consideration is immigration and visas. That will require and entire posting, so look for updates. Income tax for foreigners working in Indonesia is 6%, called the NPWP. All purchases have a VAT included in the price. If you have specific questions, leave a comment or contact me via email, and I will try to address the issue in a future post or get a personal response to you.

As they say in Indonesia, "Ya bisa!" (Yes, you can!)