Robert Paterson's Weblog: Aging

World War 1 - Prelude to Hell - April 1915 - The players take their places

This is the Essex Farm First Aid station where Dr John McCrae served at the 2nd battle of Ypres. April 22 - May 18th 1915) His close friend Alexis Helmer was blown to pieces nearby on May 2nd 1915. Elmer's friends bagged up the pieces and McRae said the service that night over the grave. This experience and the weeks of dealing with thousands of wounded at Ypres broke him.

Many of my family and their friends were to experience tragedy in these 3 weeks. All, somehow, pulled themselves together, but none were whole ever again. But on April 7th, this was all unknowable and in the future. Like a play, the next few weeks were a time when all the main players in my family were moving into position for the events of the end of the month. Let's have a quick look at who is who and what they are doing.

Alexis Helmer (see above) and Jack McRae were in the 1st Brigade Canadian Field Artillery. They were billeted in early April near Poperinge with the 2nd Brigade where my grandfather Alec Paterson was a Lieutenant in the 5th Battery.

McRae had been a serving gunner in the Boer War (middle of the back row) but was now attached to the 1st Brigade as their Medical Officer. The hospital that he would serve the war in, the 3rd, was then preparing to sail from Montreal.

The Canadian Division had played a minor role in the Battle of Neuve Chappelle and was now "resting". On April 16th they would take over from a French Division a few miles East of Ypres. Here is a map showing their movements by date.

Meanwhile, in Montreal, the "McGill" Hospital was in the final stages of preparation. They were to sail to England on May 7th on the Metagama. Much more on the 3rd here.

Second in command was my Uncle Montagu's best friend Lt Col Henry Brydges Yates. His wife Alice was equally close to Aunt Marguerite and was the head of the IODE in Montreal. Aunt Marguerite was planning to join her in England to work with her and Julia, Lady Drummond for the Red Cross.

Martha, Aunt Marguerite's eldest daughter, had this picture taken just before she too left for England and France. She had bobbed her hair to make it easier to live and work as a nurse. She had failed to be accepted by the 3rd Hospital - she was too young and untrained - and so planned to go to war as VAD. She also planned to spend a lot of time with her wounded fiancé, the gallant Lieut. Thierry Mallet who had been wounded.

She had booked passage on the Adriatic that would leave on April 21st. She was going over in the company of another close friend of her father, Dr John Lancelot Todd. Todd was going to join the 3rd Hospital and later in the war join Uncle Montagu in setting up the War Pensions organization. Todd was a close friend of Jack McCrae and had given him the horse Bonfire.

Uncle Montagu's son, Hugh, was already in England where he was in his last term at Eton. He was in Pop and had planned to go to McGill. But after the Lusitania he changed his plans and joined up.

The other Allan children, Gwen and Anna, (This is an earlier picture of the two with their mother) had been taken out of English boarding school at the outbreak of war but now were going to return with their mother to go back to school there. In the interim they had lived in Toronto with relatives and had attended Havergal. Nearly all the children of this group went to boarding school in England. It helped to own a shipping line too! There was even a kind of "School Run" crossing where they would all go over together. It must have ben fun.

Accompanying the Allan girls was Robert Holt, aged 15, the youngest son of Sir Herbert Holt who was the President of the Royal Bank of Canada. Robert too had been taken out of school in England at the outbreak of war but was now going back to return to Marlborough. He was to be seated at the Allan table and I have to assume that Aunt M was officially in charge of him. Slingsby would have likely had the day to day duties of care for the boy who fortunately was an excellent swimmer.

Aunt Marguerite was closing up her home, Ravenscrag. She would not return until 1920 and then it would be filled with the ghosts of her dead children. Emily Davis and Annie Walker, her maids, were packing 18 steamer trunks. They planned to be in England for the duration.

Nearly all the Allan line ships had been booked solid by the government as troop ships. So, Aunt M had booked passage on the Lusitania for a May 1 departure. She had the Regal Suite. As the owner of the Allan line, this may have been a complementary trip.

Chattan Stephens, my great Aunt Frances' father, was in France in the same unit as Guy Drummond, the 13th Battalion - the Royal Highlanders of Canada (Black Watch). His wife, Hazel, had left the rented house near Salisbury Plain and, based at Earles Hotel on Grosvenor St, was house hunting with her daughter my Great Aunt Frances. He was to avoid the 2nd battle of Ypres as he came down with trench fever on April 13th and was hospitalized. The trench fever developed into a very serious heart disease and he was invalided back to the UK on May 8th.

On hearing of her son's illness (the authorities did not expect him to live and their letter to his wife hardly obscured their fears - "In confirmation of my telegram of this date, I regret very much to inform you that Lieutenant F C Stephens, 13th Battalion, Canadians, is dangerously ill at No 2 Red Cross Hospital Rouen, suffering form Endocarditis......") - Mrs Stephens, his mother in Montreal, decided to come to England and took with her, his son John who had stayed in Canada. Hearing that her friend, Marguerite Allan was taking the Lusitania, she decided to join her on that sailing.

Chattan's sister, also called Marguerite, had come over to England with her husband Hamilton Gault on the troopship carrying the PPCLI. Here she is surrounded by men. The PPCLI had left England for France in early January. Ugly rumours were now circulating about her and a brother officer. This was to bubble up and destroy their marriage and become a huge scandal.

Uncle Hammie had already been wounded on Feb 28th and returned to the unit to take command on May 5th. Just in time to see his regiment nearly wiped out on May 8th. Only 150 men remained.

Julia Lady Drummond was now getting into her stride in London where she was running the Information Bureau. She spent the war at Browns Hotel and had spent Christmas with her son Guy and his best friend Trumbell Warren. Trum was in the 48th Highlanders and Guy in the 13th Battalion, Royal Highlanders. Both were in the 3rd Brigade. Both were married to sisters. Guy to Mary and Trum to Marjory Braithwaite. Both girls conceived that Christmas leave. I would think it likely that by mid April, Julia would have known that she was to be a granny. Their sister, Dorothy was still in Canada. When she learned on April 23rd that both her sisters had been widowed, she too booked passage on the Lusitania. Knowing that Lady Allan and Mrs Stephens were on board must have made her mother feel safer. Dorothy also joined the Allan party on the same table.

Uncle Montagu was still in Montreal. He had been instrumental in getting the Number 3 Hospital set up and still had extensive business interests that he had to tidy up before leaving to join the family in England. After Aunt Marguerite recovered from her injuries and her loss, he, aged 55, enlisted in the active armed services in April 1916.

So here we are, at the edge of the abyss. Act 2 of the drama is about to start and the destiny of my family will be changed forever in the next 6 weeks. All the fantastic privilege that they enjoyed will count for nothing as they pay the price of war.

Posted at 02:57 PM in Aging | Permalink | Comments (0)

World War 1 - Ypres Jan 1915 - The Future Crucible for the Canadians

This is the Cloth Hall in Ypres at the end of 1914. Ypres was where the Canadians lost their innocence. It was where the war took a new turn in horror.

All of this because it could not be lost. (More context here)

Here it is at the end of the war. Still in allied hands but without one building standing.

Why was Ypres so important? Why did the Canadians play such a role here early in 1915 in the 2nd battle of Ypres and later at the 3rd battle of Ypres?

This map shows why Ypres was so important. In the closing months of 1914. The Germans had almost reached Paris but had been turned back on the Marne. Each side tried to outflank the other from the North. This process lead to the establishment of trenches that ran from the Channel in the North to the Swiss border in the south.

Ypres was the end of the line. (Here is more on this time)

This image using Google Earth gives us a sense of how close it is to the sea.

If the British lost Ypres, the whole trench system could be rolled up and the BEF could be blocked from thre ports.

The "Race for the Sea" ended in November 1914 at Ypres. Here it was finally revealed to the Germans that courage was not enough. That faced with rapid fire from trained men with rifles, machine guns and artillery firing high explosive flesh and blood had no chance.

By January 1915, both armies were now spent. (Source for quote)

The losses were staggering. From October 12 to November 12, 1914 the British sustained 56,000 casualties, including 8,000 killed, 30,000 wounded, and 18,000 missing (of whom perhaps a third or more were also killed). While it’s harder to find precise numbers for the other combatants, the Germans suffered around 135,000 casualties across all categories, the French 85,000, and the Belgians 22,000. Assuming that one fourth of the casualties were fatal, as in the case of the British, it seems safe to assume that around 75,000 soldiers lost their lives at the First Battle of Ypres.

The BEF was eviscerated. (Source for quote)

One soldier, Private Donald Fraser, explained it this way: "one [a man] was not a soldier unless he had served on the Ypres front." Less than half of the 160,000 men the BEF sent to France came out of the encounter unscathed. After November 1914, the British would come to call these trenches 'the Salient" and would remain as Ypres' guardians for the rest of the war.

The BEF had to be reinforced. The First Division of the Canadians would be amongst the first reinforcements. They will arrive in February 1915. At the same time the Territorials and reservists from the British army also arrived. It would take until the summer of 1916 for the new Kitchener army to arrive. By which time the Canadians would be a Corps.

In spite of the losses, hopes on the allied side were still high.

It looked in January that the Allies had nearly won the war. They had pushed the Germans back a long way. They had held the Ypres salient. To many it needed just one more push. .

But these hopes were misplaced. The Germans held all the best defensive ground. At at Ypres they held 3 sides of a box.

The Germans were on high ground and could fire into the shallow trenches of the new front. They could see everything and everyone. The Salient was a death trap.

This is the infamous Hellfire Corner. The road feeding the front from Ypres town. Defenders were exposed all the time. The screens on the left were an attempt to shield people on the road. You can see that the gunners are going at a gallop here.

The British Army had settled into shallow and makeshift trenches. The thinking was that they were not going to be here for long. Here is what life looked like then.

Or this:

Strewn in front of the trenches were the dead of the battles in the autumn. It was too dangerous to move them.

This dead Frenchman lay exposed for a year.

So this was the place where the Canadians would find themselves in 6 weeks time. This what what any oberserver could see.

But things were going on that no one could see.

Back in Germany, a world renowned scientist who had invented nitrogen fertilizer, was working on a secret plan to give the Germans the edge and enable them to break through here at Ypres.

In our next post we will look at the use of Gas.

Posted at 02:44 PM in Aging | Permalink | Comments (0)

Summer Solstice and the Journey of Life

I find the longest day both happy and sad. Summer is on its way. For the next 3 months we can sit and eat outside. We work in our garden and we see our friends and family. That's the happy. But in a place like Canada where the summers are so short, the way the days get shorter is also a harbinger of the winter to come. That is my sad.

Isn't this like our lives?

I see June 21st a bit like when we reach 35. We are on the cusp of young and mature. With luck we have birthed our kids and the long haul of raising them has begun. Our bodies are not what they had been and as for our bodies, it is downhill all the way into the future!

No wonder December 25 is celebrated as the birth of Jesus. It is that darkest time when life stirs unseen in the womb.

March is surely when we are sexually mature. The birds and the bees and all life is busy nesting and mating. Life is bubbling up and life is ahead of us and full of promise. No wonder we rejoice.

September, where I think I am now, is a look back at the joys of summer. With luck to see our job done in raising our own kids and maybe the joy of seeing them raise theirs. With luck to look back on your life's work and feel good about it. To remember the year behind you. For surely September is a time of gratitude. It hopefully is a harvest time when what we have sown in life comes to fruition. It is also sad. For time is now so short. Every day of sun is precious. All around us the plants give up their colour and start to die. Decay advances. We pay attention to life more than we ever have before.

And in December, as life renews itself, we say good bye to all we know. In the end we say goodbye even to ourselves and join that eternal cycle of birth, life. decay and death. Hopefully we have had a life. It is too late then if you have not.

No wonder the ancients payed such attention to these solstice dates. As do we still. Christmas is still the celebration of renewal. Easter happens also to be the next equinox. Christians celebrate life then. In Canada and the US we celebrate Canada day and July 4th. In Quebec this weekend we celebrate St Jena Baptiste day. These times are when we celbrate ourselves. In September we celebrate Labour day. It is also harvest festival. We celebrate what we have done

When I think of the great festivals of the sun and our lives, the old meaning makes more and more sense to me.

Am I just an old man in my September, or do these times touch you too?

Posted at 09:39 AM in Aging | Permalink | Comments (4)

The Secret of Health for Canada's First Nations - Return to the Old Ways of Eating - It's Working

Here is the first part of a 3 part series on how a community in Alert Bay have taken charge of their health by giving up the modern diet and returned to their ancestral ways - a high fat and high protein diet. Weight has dropped and so has Type 2 Diabetes.

I am so excited by this. Here is the science.

Posted at 10:41 AM in Aging, diet, Food | Permalink | Comments (0)

The FDA and BIg Pharma want us to be ill? - 3 issues this weekend suggest they do

This weekend I saw a number of news items that caused me to think more about the role of the corporatization of health. It is clear to me that there is a a group of people who don't want us to be healthy and who are invested in our being ill. If I am right what can we do?

In this post I make a case for the problem and I offer up a way of dealing with it.

Breast Cancer and the BRCA1 Gene

First of all, if you wish to test for the Breast Cancer Gene that affects abiut 10% of women but also drives a very high chance of getting Breast Cancer, you will have to have at least $4,000. For this test and the gene are subject to copyright! Link Here

"Unlike routine tests for diabetes or high cholesterol, however, the BRCA gene evaluation — performed by only one company in the United States, Myriad Genetics — is phenomenally expensive, with a “list price” close to $4,000 when a related genomic-rearrangement test is included in the analysis, which oncologists typically recommend."

If you go to 23andme you can get a whole range of gene tests for $99! Testing for genes is no longer expensive. But if you have the copyright and you have a gene and a test that is rooted in a killer problem, then you can charge what you want. What a business!

C Difficile and Fecal Transplants

C Difficile is a major cause of death now. It is caused by a failure of our gut health. Poor diet and the use of antibiotics can kill off the good bacteria leaving us exposed to the bad. THE way of curing this is very simple and works in less than 2 days. It costs almost nothing. It is called a "Fecal Transplant". And yes it is just that. Good poo from a person with a healthy gut is given to the sick person via an enema. Think Blood Transfusion.

There is next to no risk. The patient is often at death's door and time is critical. But now the FDA want to regulate this. Not by setting a standard that any practitioner can get ready to apply but by demanding a lengthy application for a licence to experiment on a human. More at this link here at Wired.

This can be a death sentence if there is no time. I have to ask why? I can only think that the FDA are against treatments that cannot be monetized by their supporters.

The FDA is always quick to step in when there is a non corporate idea.

Alzheimers and Vitamin B

Alzheimers could become the most expensive disease out there as many boomers get it. Of course the real costs are social. Sufferers demand such a high level of care. Big Pharma have been trying for ages to find THE drug and have failed. We are starting to understand though that Alzheimers is a lifestyle disease. It is avoidable. The pathway is diet again.

High levels of Vitamin B preserve brain power and size. More at this link

"Older people’s brains shrink about 0.5 percent a year from the age of 60, and faster in people with vitamin B12 deficiency, mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease, Smith said. If that pace can be significantly slowed before full-blown Alzheimer’s develops, it may delay the disease’s progression so that older people can enjoy better lives until they die from another cause.

“If you delay the onset by five years, you can halve the number of people dying from it,” says Jess Smith, a research communications officer at the Alzheimer’s Society, a U.K. charity."

So here is the Big Pharma issue. More research has to be done. But in today's research climate, unless there is a blockbuster pill that can be copyrighted, there is no money. Research into real health does not get funded.

“We need bigger studies and more evidence that looks at what homocysteine is doing and what is actually going on in the brain.”

A. David Smith agrees. He plans a study of B vitamins in 1,200 people over 70 with MCI and elevated homocysteine. He needs 6 million pounds ($9.1 million) to pay for it. Miller plans another large study and wants to see if folic acid in flour in the U.S. leads to different results there. Meanwhile, the lack of blockbuster-drug potential presents funding hurdles.

“The pharmaceutical companies aren’t going to make any money on this and the supplement companies aren’t going to have enough money to do it,” Miller said. “This would have to be government-funded. I’m just not sure the climate is right for it now.”

The good news is that the American Gut Health project has shown us that we can crowd fund this kind of research. I have sent my poo in already! I also participate in the D Action Study to study the impact of Vitamin D. I am going to apply to test my genes at 23andme. I want to check out my ancestry which is a major factor in health risk.

I think that my health is up to me. I do my own research. I help others do theirs. I take action. We can all do this can't we?

If gut health IS the core health issue. Then all of us can take control. If you wish to know more about this, Michael Pollan has written a wonderful introduction here. If you want to know even more, Jeff Leach has a short book for $2.99 that is the bible here.

Health is the arena where we as individuals can beat the system.

Posted at 10:30 AM in Aging, Corporatism, diet, Environment, Evolutionary Fit, Food, Food Systems, Health, Natural Organization, Personal Health | Permalink | Comments (0)

How student debt will change our economy and so our culture

"Mr. Gill owes about $45,000 in federal student loans, plus another $40,000 to his parents. That investment in his future has led to a secure job with decent pay and good benefits. But it has left him with tremendous financial constraints, as he faces chipping away at the debt for years on end.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in a new study, found that 30-year-olds with student loans were now less likely to have debts like home mortgages than 30-year-olds without student loans — even though most of those with student loans are better educated and can expect to earn more money over their lifetimes. The same pattern holds true for 25-year-olds and car loans.

From today's NYT

This is surely a different start than any modern generation has had before? Can you buy a car? Can you own a home? Can you afford to have children? What does it mean for how you live your life?

Is this why so many young don't and have to find another way?

Is this why car sharing has to be a new reality? Is this why renting will become so important? Is this why owning stuff will have to be less important? Is this why in the UK so many 30 plus year olds still live with their parents?

With a 37% unemployment rate for this generation in the US, what does 10 + years of no job also add to this equation?

Isn't our economy and our culture is centred on owning stuff. It has been since the dawn of agriculture. But the Millennials cannot own stuff. A whole generation will grow into middle age with few assets that they "Own".

A marker of this is car sales. Cars sales have dropped in Europe for 18 months in a row. Car sales are down 10% in Europe and 17% in Germany! Demand also sank in other major continental markets, falling 14.5% in France, 13.9% in Spain and 4.9% in Italy. The UK was the only major bright spot for car makers, with sales up 5.9%.

What does this mean to an economy that is based on selling more and more stuff?

What will this mean to marriage and family? At the moment single people and single parents are at an all time high. Can a person survive as a single in this kind of world where sharing may be the only way to have what we need?

Now combine this with the Boomers who do not have enough assets and savings to make it thorugh old age and we have a cultural revolution. The Millenials and the Boomers need each other to make it through having kids and getting through old age.

We cannot know how this will be in any detail. But this is will be very different from any generation for 10,000 years.

It could mean the re-emergence of a society that is based on sharing and on the tribe. We used to live like this. Huans lived like this for all time - Except the last 10,000 years after the dawn of agriculture.

My book - You Don't Need a Job - offers some insight into what is going on.

Posted at 06:46 AM in Aging, Books, Credit, Great Disruption, jobs, Local Resiliency, Natural Organization, Organizations and Culture, Paradigms, Pensions, You Don't Need a Job | Permalink | Comments (6)

Maybe Wine O'Clock Not So Often - Giving Up Drinking - Help!

I love wine. But it does not love me anymore. It affects my sleep too much now and I am just not as resilient as I was in how I recover.

3 glasses is way too much. 2 is on the line and 1 seems to be okay. Maybe none would be best?

So here I am at the point where so many of us find ourselves. We have to give up habits that we have had all our lives and that we love. Every night for 50 years I have drunk wine. I drank a lot of it. This is my favourite habit.

You have your own habits too, don't you? It may be wine. It may be candy. It may be pop. It may be pizza. It may be smoking.

For me, this is the last frontier. I have given up all the other bad ones. What helped me with smoking and grains, is that for me, I feel the bad effects of those bad habits directly. My lungs hurt when I smoked. I got bloated with grains. In wine's case, I am no longer sleeping well. I wake up often and feel so dehydrated. So this feedback is a help.

What is really hard is when people have a habit that is bad for them that they do not feel directly. Worse, is when they feel good. You Cup Cake eaters know what I am saying! You beer fans know too.

But while I feel shitty after I drink, I feel wonderful as I do. I also enjoy the anticipation. Just thinking of my first glass of wine...! Wine Oclock has been getting earlier and earlier! So I am trying an old and successful strategy for me.

What I am doing is progessively cutting back. I am now at 1 glass a night. It has taken me a week to get here. The tough time is from 5 - 6pm. But I find that once I have had my 1 glass, I am not so frantic. I also find that delaying and then giving myself a small treat, helps me cope with the longing. The difference in how I sleep and feel is quite measurable too. So my body is sending me poistive feedback, when my mind is longing for another glass.

But my mind has a helper too. The money side is interesting and an incentive too. Wine was our largest expense - much more than food. I am keeping a tab. We will save at least $250 a month. That is the same as my phone and internet costs.

Money is a good incentive for the mind. A good friend did this when he gave up smoking. Paul had a piggy bank and put his $20 a day (2 packs) into this. It was enough for him to take his wife on a cruise at the end of year 1.

Lastly, I am going public for a good reason. Tough commitments made in public are easier to keep that the ones we make just to ourselves.

You can see how I am approaching this - what works for you? How have you found success in giving up your favourite bad habits?

Posted at 12:40 PM in Aging, diet, Food, Health | Permalink | Comments (9)

Retirement - Another Industrial Idea whose day has come?

You can retire from a job. But can you retire from life? Is the idea of retirement part of the idea of the job?

If this is correct, then as fewer and fewer of us have jobs, then the idea of spending the age of 65 - 85 playing golf has to go away. As does the idea of us old folks living separate lives.

With low relative wages over the last 20 years, the saving base is not here anyway. 75% of American nearing retirement age in 2010 have less than $30,000 in savings. Most have no pensions in the old way of a predictable annual flow of money either. And even these, mainly in government, are under threat as many are underfunded. Many pensions have lost a lot of ground in the last 10 years as well. With very low interest rates, even people who have savings are earning next to no income. Government bonds pay less that 1.5%. This will force savers into capital.

This thoughtful piece got me thinking more about this today.

"As with many concepts that we now take for granted as a reality seemingly dictated by the laws of physics, the idea of retirement is a social construction that is subject to change. A combination of factors now challenge today’s notion of retirement. The changing nature of work, economic necessity, smaller and fragmented families, the capacity of public and private pension providers to ensure income that enables 20-plus years of not working for income as well as the desire of many retirement age people to continue working are eroding our expectations of what retirement is and should be. Sometimes big change happens slowly and is barely perceptible at any one moment. Retirement, as we know it today, is history. A new story is emerging – a narrative that will change how we individually plan and behave as well as the government and business institutions that are built to support the retirement we once knew."

I struggle to make sense of this for myself. I have savings but next to no pension. My savings would have been enough in times when interest rates were higher but not now. This is why I have downsized my own life and invested in ways of reducing my costs in the future. This is why I have become so interested in staying healthy. This is why I have started to reconnect with the daily lives of my kids and their kids.

Are you a boomer? How do you see the next 20 years? Do you have some good ideas to add to the mix. I don't think any of us on our own are smart enough to figure this out. But maybe we can collectively muddle our way ahead through trial and error?

Posted at 10:57 AM in Aging, Pensions | Permalink | Comments (2)

An investment strategy for the common man - Boomers real Freedom 65!

How's your pension or savings going?

All you have heard to date is that you have to save enough to pay for your life as you age. This just is not possible for most people. Many boomers have teen age or school age kids AND elderly infirm parents. Saving enough and then making a killing in the market is an insane idea and it never happens for regular folks. It's impossible to fulfil this idea. Interest rates are at historic lows. The markets are controlled by traders. The underlying economy is a shambles. Traditional pensions are a thing of the past.

So what to do?

It is to invest to REDUCE your day to day costs and to INCREASE your ability to make a living. And to invest in the next generation so that they can help you. This is my pension plan in outline. So let's look at the details.

Personal Costs

Avoid being ill. Especially avoid developing a chronic illness. The average man in Canada is disabled by illness by the age of 65 and lives for another 10 years. He depends on his family and the state to suport him. This drives cash costs, a huge burden on your family and on the state. You may not have the cash, the family or the state to look after you anyway. This is also true for the average woman, the cycle start 5 years later.

In the US Fidelity predict that the average US retired family will spend nearly $250,000 on health costs in the last years of life. No one has that kind of savings!

Let's make this real.

My mum has been in a nursing home for 14 years ($40,000 a year) and has had an annual drug bill of $3,000 a year. That's nearly $500,000. My dad's pension fortunately has covered this. Without it I dread to think of what this would have meant to me. I would have become a prisoner to her. The last thing I want is to be a burden to my kids. The state will not be able to pick up the tab when so many boomers are in the their older years either.

So becoming Healthy is rule #1. That is why I have taken charge of my health and why this first step is so important for all of us boomers.

You can read all about how to do this in You Don't Need Medicine to Get Healthy

Reduce your structural living costs.

Energy - Home The #1 exposure that we have is to energy costs. So the size of our house and the way we heat it is key. Next to that is our need to get around. All of this is connected to the price of oil and energy. Already on PEI where I used to live, the average household heating bill is more than $3,000 a year. In a typical winter with a 2.500 square foot house, we would fill the tanks in October, January , February and March. At $800 a fill at current prices, that is about the average. We make this payment from our after tax income.

There are a number of ways around this. First of all, move to a smaller house with a smaller footprint. Less to heat and to maintain. Less to pay in taxes too! For that bill can easily be $3000 a year. Less to insure.

Then insulate like crazy and install the most efficient system you can. Supplement with wood if you can.

We have done this and we have cut our heating bill to $700 for the whole winter! We now have a hedge against future increases in energy costs too. We spent about $25,000 to get this improvement. Looks like a lot? But now look at the return and compare this to putting $25,000 in the market or on deposit.

That is an annual after tax return of nearly 11%. Government of Canada 5 - 10 year bonds yield 1.4%. And that is after tax. If oil prices go up, my yield goes up. If I want to sell my house, I can make this part of the price. It's a win win win for me and for you.

The key is to see this as an investment not as just a cost.

Energy - Transportation

How much does it cost to own a car? How long will you be able to drive a car?

Each car drives a lot of structural cost. It's not just the gas, but the maintenace, the insurance and the depreciation + parking etc. Estimate that a car will cost you at least $10,000 a year after tax!

So where you live is an important structural question. I live in a small village. All the shops are within a walk or a short bike ride. We only need one car and that a tiny one. If we need more, we rent. If I have to get to Montreal, I often take the express bus that has wifi, and takes an hour and costs the same as the gas for the trip in the car.

If I need a new car in the future, I will buy a second hand one. That takes 40% of the depreciation off the table.

This has not been a big give up for us. If we really need a second car, we rent.

Finally, one of us may not be able to drive in our late age. By choosing to live in town and in walking distance of shops and life, we prepare for that too.

You can find much more on how to resuce your costs in my first book - You Don't Need a Job

Time for Cash

As our costs drop, I don't need to struggle to earn more and so I have more time. Time is the most vital part of this new freedom.

I can trade cash for time. Convenience costs. Time is free.

We do the gardening, not a service. With a small lot, most of the work can be done by hand too. That is good for our bodies and for the pocket book.

I can add wood heat to the mix too.

It gives us time to cook all our meals. This is both good for us and also cuts our food bills dramatically.

Tribe Versus Seniors Home and Child Care

Will state paid seniors homes exist in 15 years? Will it be possible for working mothers to send their kids to day care?

A seniors home, apart from being a living death, cost today about $35,000 a year. They just wont be around in 15 years except for the rich. You and the state will no longer be able to afford them. On PEI with 12,000 women over 85 at that time, the costs will exceed the current TOTAL for ALL health care today.

With incomes being squeezed for all the young, how will they be able to work and have kids. Child care is also about $30,000 a year for many now. Few will be able to earn that.

So what to plan for?

I see no alternative but to bring back the Tribe. So this again, means choosing your last home with great care. We are 1 hour from our son and his family and our son in law's mother also lives in the same village aswe do. The two grannies already help each other out a lot. Our son is here most weekends and we took care of his 1 years old for 9 nights that enabled him to get a much needed break. This summer we will have our daughter's kids for 2 weeks too.

We are laying the foundation for the tribe to come back.

I don't see another way. The only way that the old and the very young can be accomodated in the next 15 years is to come back together. Not an easy thing to do. We are so unused to this way of living. So this is why doing it step by step helps.

If we can get this right we are looking at saving up to $100,000 after tax a year. Or at least reducing the risk of a break down in the family at both ends. I don;t se an alternative - do you?

Bottom Line

There is no way that most Boomers can save and invest enough money to live as we do now over the next 20 years. Nor can we expect the state to be there to help. By 2030, at current rates , the alzheimers costs in the US alone will exceed the budget for Medicaire.

We will be pushed back on ourselves. But on our own, we are not strong enough.

So the only alternative that I can see, is to restructure our lives. We have to create new habits of helping each other in the family so that, as we get older, the new normal is to do things with each other. The new normal is to share costs and even space.

If you don't have kids, then I suggest looking to your closest friends and start to share your lives with them.

This fall I will write a book about this - You Don't Need a Stockbroker to Retire when I will expand on thse ideas. What do you think so far?

Posted at 10:10 AM in Aging, Energy, Freedom99%, Health | Permalink | Comments (1)

Rita McNeil died of an infection she caught in hospital - Why & what to do

It was announced yesterday that Rita McNeil died as a result of an infection she she acquired in hospital after surgery. She is not a rare case. (The Globe have just printed a retraction saying now that Rita McNeil did not die of a hospital sourced infection. This does not change the meat of the story that follows - that hopsitals and surgery are not safe)

Most of us think that surgery is safe and that so are hospitals. Neither is true. Especially today when hospitals have long given up being clean and have relied on drugs to keep infection at bay.

Here are the stats for Canadians.

"Hospital-acquired infections sicken 250,000 patients annually and kill between 8,000 and 12,000 Canadians. The bugs patients catch while in care are one of the leading causes of death in this country; they kill twice as many people as breast cancer."

Here is how it is for residents of California.

"One in 20 hospital patients get infections. In California, roughly 200,000 people get hospital infections annually, and 12,000 of them die, according to state Department of Public Health statistics. That makes such infections one of the state's leading causes of death, ahead of automobile accidents and Alzheimer’s disease."

Hospitals have become the most dangerous place you can be in today. Why is this?

First of all hopsitals are not clean and nor do the staff, including doctors, take cleanlines as seriously as their predecessors. Back in 1900, the ONLY defence against infection was how clean the hospital was and how carefully the staff followed the rules about their own person. The #1 work of nursing was keeping the total environment clean.

With the advent of anti biotics, this pressure to be clean has gone away. Cleaning is now performed by cleaning staff and is often seen as mopping and dusting. In 1900 everytime a patient left, the entire bed and all the screens would be cleaned. Everything would be sterilized.

The widespread use of antibiotics, especially with livestock, has reduced their efficacy and has produced resistant bugs. The high carb diet has and the use of anti biotics has also created a new environment inside us! Many people have very toxic gut flora that is just waiting to get out and play.

C Difficile, lives in our own gut! It kills 30,000 people a year in the US.

So what can we do?

Today, most of us think nothing about surgery. We think it is routine and safe. As you can see from the stats, it is not safe. Much of surgery today is not vital. It may be useful but not vital. A Doctor friend of mine has a rule for himself. If he would not have the surgery without an anesthetic, he would not have it. This was the choice until 1860. You had surgery as a last resort. So the first step would surely be to avoid surgery. But what if you have bad knees? Ask why as a first step. What else can you do before having surgery?

More than 500,000 joint replacements were performed in Canada last year. The demand for knee and hip replacement is growing at 15% per annum. I was on my way to join this group myself. But since I lost 35 ilbs, my knees are of course much better. The waiting room was full of overweight people.

Being over weight for decades put a terrible strain on our joints. Pick up a 50 pound bag of potatoes and walk up and down the stairs and you will see immediately what I am talking about.

You have to have surgery. How do you reduce your own risks?

A high grain diet messes up with your gut flora and set up C Difficile to become dominant in your system. Change your diet. Investigate the topic of gut flora. See how it is central to your health.

We bring C Difficle into hospital in our own bodies. We give it the optimal environment to thrive by how we eat and by how we use antibiotics and how the food industry uses them. You can eat a diet that offers you high gut health and that gives CD a rough time.

Routinely taking anti biotics for minor problems also ruins your gut flora. They kill off your good flora and they promote C Difficile. Avoid antibiotics unless you really have to use them. Use them sparingky and when you do, work to restore your gut flora with the right kind of diet and with pro biotics.

Buy different food. Most of antibiotics today are used by the factory farming system to keep their cows, pigs and chickens alive long enough to go to market. The FDA announced that 80% of all antibiotics used are used on livestock. You can make the shift to buying meat from producers that don't factory farm.

We are not helpless. We have many choices before us that can give us a strong immune system and a healthy body. I fear that we take for granted that we can do anything we want and then be fixed risk free, that we have given up taking charge of ourselves.

What will it take to give us the incentive to take charge? We wear seat belts in our cars. We worry about plane crashes. Most of us don't smoke now. But we think a pill or the knife will fix us risk free. Did you know that the #1 cause of death for Americans between the ages of 35 and 50 is from reactions to precription drugs?

My book, You Don't Need Medicine to get Healthy, is an overview of how you can take control of your own health. At $2.99, it is surely a bargain?