Monthly Archives: April 2016

Can You Really Improve Your Eyesight By Eating A Lot Of Carrots?

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The short answer is No. Although carrots are rich in Vitamin A and other nutrients, you can’t actually improve your eyesight by eating carrots. Although we don’t know the origin of most popular myths, we do know the origin of this story (a story that I used to believe was true.) The myth that people who eat a lot of carrots have excellent eyesight was started by the British government during World War 2 as a trick to fool the Germans. It wound up fooling everybody.

carrotsDuring World War 2, the British government didn’t want the Germans to realize just how important radar was to their national defense. Radar was the principle reason why the RAF (Royal Air Force) won the Battle of Britain. The British Air Ministry built a chain of radar stations along the southern coast of England before World War 2 began. Because the Air Ministry had these radar stations, the RAF knew exactly when German bombers were headed their way, and they knew it long before the planes arrived. Fortunately for Britain, neither Hitler nor Goering (the head of the German air force) understood how radar worked or how important it was. The British Air Ministry didn’t want Hitler to figure this out, but the RAF was shooting down a tremendous number of German airplanes, and the Air Ministry needed some sort of plausible explanation for this. They started running stories in British newspapers claiming that their aircraft spotters had exceptional eyesight because they ate a lot of carrots, which supposedly gave them the ability to see German airplanes at night, in total darkness, and at great distances. As preposterous as this story was, a lot of people believed it! The Air Ministry released stories throughout the war about British aircraft spotters, most of whom were women, along with pictures of them eating carrots while looking for German airplanes at night. This disinformation campaign was so persuasive that a lot of Englishmen started eating carrots in the belief that it would help them find their way around English city streets during the nightly blackouts. The story spread around the world and is still widely believed to be true. Even now, people everywhere with poor eyesight eat carrots in the belief that it will improve their vision. The truth is that you cannot improve your eyesight, cure eye disease, or develop the ability to see in total darkness by eating carrots. On the other hand – eating carrots won’t hurt. (Above is a World War 2 American propaganda poster claiming that eating carrots improves the night vision of American soldiers.) There are a lot of other commonly accepted myths that started off as World War 2 propaganda. Perhaps I will cover some of the others in the future.

 

Could Your Apartment Be Leaking Electricity?

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The short answer is No. Every now and then, I get a phone call from a tenant complaining that his electric bill is higher than it should be because the wiring in his apartment is ‘leaking electricity.’ (Don’t laugh. I get phone calls like this fairly regularly.) I tell people who talk this way that electricity doesn’t work that way. Electricity cannot ooze out of the wiring in your walls. I suppose that some people think about electricity the same way they do about other 2 major utilities that come into their homes: natural gas and water. A sudden spike in your gas or water bill could be due to a leaky pipe. (That usually isn’t the reason, but it could be.) However, electricity doesn’t ‘leak.’ The sheathing around electrical wiring isn’t there to prevent the electricity from escaping. Electrical wire sheathing is to prevent short circuiting, electric shock, and fires. If your electric bill seems suspiciously high, the first thing to do is analyze your PG&E bill. Pacific Gas & Electric bills combine gas and electric charges together on one statement. If your PG&E bill has suddenly gone up, you first need to figure out whether it is due to an increase in your gas or electricity usage or the rate. If you have gas heat in your home, a big change in your PG&E bill is usually due to increased gas use for heating in winter.

 

Why Isn’t Rent Tax Deductible Like Home Mortgage Interest?

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The short answer is Lobbying. Federal and state income tax laws in the United States give homeowners a huge tax break that is not available to tenants. Home mortgage interest, which is generally the biggest single expense for homeowners, is tax-deductible. However, rent is not tax-deductible. In other words, homeowners get to pay their mortgages with pre-tax income, but tenants have to pay their rent with after-tax income. Why is that? Well, it is simply the power of lobbying. There are very powerful and well-funded trade associations that want home mortgage interest to remain tax-deductible, including the National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders. These groups have the ability to write out checks for millions of dollars to PACs (Political Action Committees) and Super PACs that back compliant and ‘morally flexible’ politicians. Tenant associations don’t have that kind of money. It now costs over $10 million, on average, to get elected to the U.S. Senate. In most industrialized nations, home mortgage interest is not tax deductible. For example, in Canada, there is no tax benefit or deduction for home mortgage interest. Why? It is because they also don’t have Political Action Committees in Canada, and lobbyists in Canada cannot legally give money to politicians.

Calling Me On The Telephone.

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When calling me on the telephone, please remember that before I answer my phone, I always check my Caller I.D. screen first. If my Caller I.D. screen does not identify the caller, or if it tells me that the call is from ‘Private Caller’, ‘Unknown Name’, ‘Blocked Number’, ‘Unavailable’, ‘Toll Free Number’, ‘Out of Area’, etc.; I will not answer the call. If you are calling me from a telephone that does not identify the caller or if you have Caller I.D. blocking, just leave a message on my voice mail. Do not hang up and call me back later. That won’t do any good. I check my messages frequently, and I will reply to legitimate voice mail messages. I am sorry if this seems rude, but I get too many robocalls and calls from phony charities, crooks, and scammers, and this is the only way I can control the problem.

You should do the same thing that I do about this. When you answer a telephone call from a robocaller, you are telling the computer that called you that your phone ​number is active and that you answer robocalls. Doing that just gets your name put on their sucker list, and crooks sell their sucker lists to other crooks!

P.S. – I am writing this because 2 days ago I got a voice mail message from “the awards committee” saying that I had “just won a free all-expense paid vacation to Bermuda, including the airfare.” The caller was a man. He spoke with an accent that sounded to me like he was from the British West Indies, but I’m not sure. He said that in order for me to claim my prize, I had to call him back within 24 hours with my credit card number and security code to “verify” my identity. The call came from the 234 Area Code. That’s the Area Code for Nigeria. I didn’t call him back because this didn’t smell entirely kosher to me. Several people have told me that I have a suspicious nature, and I think that’s true. Anyway, it’s been more than 24 hours since I got this message, so I guess I’ve lost my free Bermuda vacation.