As we approach the end of the year, I think about my final charitable donations for the year.
“Give all you have to the poor, and follow me.” You can find that said, as the supposed words of Jesus, in one form or the other, in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
In fact, in the most radical interpretation of those various passages, one cannot follow Jesus unless one does that. “Easier for the camel to pass through the eye of the needle, than for a rich man to enter heaven”. And all that.
How nutso is that?
I mean, just work out the literal implications of that for the modern U.S. suburbanite.
“Honey, I’m selling the house, the cars; liquidating the IRAs and the investment accounts; and giving all the proceeds to the church. We and our children can live as beggars. But it’s OK, we’ll get our reward in heaven.”
One might plausibly expect some negative feedback to that plan. As in, I’d expect to be declared mentally incompetent if I tried to do that. That’s how contrary to any sense of self-preservation or self-interest that particular piece of New Testament wisdom runs. If you actually tried it, the courts would stop you, one way or the other. For your own good. Because no rational individual would do that. They would assume you were nuts.
But is that necessarily true?
Lucralgia
When I was a much younger man, I made up the term “lucralgia” to describe something I felt from time to time. It’s a portmanteau of lucre (money), and -algia (pain).
It’s that special pain you feel when giving away a significant sum of money. It’s the “hurts” in “give ’til it hurts”. I suspect that each person’s sense of lucralgia sets an upper limit on their charity, barring those who literally follow the rules of their church (e.g., literal tithing). You can only stand to give but so much.
I’ve always felt inadequate, somehow, in my philanthropy. You’re supposed to feel cheerful and upbeat about all the good your doing by contributing to worthy charities. All those babies saved, trees hugged, and whatnot.
But all I ever felt was a vague sense of duty. And lucralgia. That ache behind your solar plexus when you do your duty and sign a bunch of checks to worthy charities.
No joy.
The life table.
Those of us in the business know it. Actuaries. Health economists.
For the rest of you, find your line. Then read ’em and weep. This is an excerpt from the 2020 U.S life table, showing how likely it is that, all other things equal, 100,000 Americans will live past a certain age.
Source: CDC
The life table as the cure for lucralgia, or the rewards for a lifetime of hard work.
Here in the U.S.A., if you work hard, succeed financially, invest with wisdom, and live modestly, and generally are lucky enough to have all suns shine, you will eventually be rewarded with the epiphany that you will die before you can spend all of your money.
I am one of the fortunate ones who has met the criteria.
Perhaps less fortunately, I figured this out, for myself, a few years back. Maybe it’s because I am a health economist, working mainly with Medicare data. But I was completely familiar with the life table. And when I slapped that up against an estimate of expected financial returns — that’s when I retired.
The truly weird thing about that is that once you reach that realization, then, rationally, as long as you place little or no value on passing your money on to your kids, then the value of money is zero.
If the checking account balance is going to be massively positive on date-of-death, then, what’s the value of another $1000 more or less? It’s zero.
You can’t take it with you.
An aside for my favorite economist-religous joke.
Old Mr. McGill is getting on in years. He’s exceptionally well-to-do, but never married and has no close relatives. All throughout his life, he’s donated millions to the Church. But all he has now, in life, is his fortune.
So he asks the parish priest if he can take his fortune with him when he dies. And he gets the stock answer, no, you can’t take it with you.
Not satisfied, he kicks it up the Church hierarchy, based on his history of massive charity toward the Church. At some point, the Pope Himself communes with God. And, lo and behold, in this one case, God will make an exception. The decision comes down. Mr. McGill can take it with him.
Overjoyed, Mr. McGill starts liquidating his assets, converting everything to gold bars and stacking them in a big aluminum suitcase. Block upon block of the precious metal. And, as is so often the case, as he almost got that suitcase filled, he suffered a massive stroke and died.
And there he went, suitcase in hand, off to heaven.
St. Peter met him at the gate, took one look at Mr. McGill and his suitcase, and said, “Nope, you know the rules. You can’t take it with you.”
To which Mr. McGill replied, “There’s an exception in my case”.
St. Peter promptly conferred with God, found out that this was true, opened up the Pearly Gates, and waved Mr. McGill into heaven.
“But,”, said St. Peter, “I have to know. What was so important that you couldn’t leave it back on Earth, but had to drag it with you to Heaven?”
And McGill gets a big smile on his face, places his suitcase down, and opens it up to display the contents.
Said St. Peter, incredulously: “You brought pavement?”
Lucralgia no more
My point is that, if you get old enough, and have enough, it’s all just so much pavement.
As a consequence, what hurt badly as a young man doesn’t sting any more. Inverse Widow’s Mite, I guess, as long as I’m in New Testament mode. I’ve found the solution for lucralgia. Or it has found me.
Weirdly, I’m still as cheap as ever. All those habits of thrift, ingrained over a lifetime, continue to function.
But when it comes to writing those checks at the end of the year, it’s just not the painful chore it once was. I still find no joy in it. It’s just something that needs to be done. But I no longer have to fight down that pain as I sign my name. It’s just another chunk of pavement.
