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A few years ago I wrote a letter to President Trump objecting to the United States withdrawing from the Paris Agreement in June of 2017:

I object to your plans to remove the USA from the Paris Accords. Your explanation for leaving the accords includes false science and dubious reasoning, and thus I object to your statements and explanation too. I object to your lack of faith in the American people’s ability to reduce carbon releases into the atmosphere while reducing the total cost. Sir, I have found that America wins by innovating and fails when staying with out-dating technologies. By trying to leave the Paris Accords, you are on the wrong side of history and history will find you guilty of trying to prevent changes that will make it a better world and even add jobs to the economy, new good paying and safe jobs.

Mr. President your lack of faith in the American people is shocking. Nobody wants coal smoke to breath, oily water to drink, and poisoned lands to live on. The American people and I will make the Paris Accords work without you.

I was surprised to receive a response back from the President a few months later:

Yes, it is likely a bit of a form letter and probably not actually hand signed by President Trump, but not often do I get to report the official response. The President has personally committed to me to “pursue technology and innovation that protect the environment.” I also exchanged Christmas cards. I may be the only Democrat and Hillary voter to be so treated!

But this is just a start into my story. It is my belief, as it also appears to be the President’s belief that innovation will bring us what we need. This brings us to IMO 2020.

The Internation Maritime Organization (IMO) is the regulatory body that sets the standards for shipping. Try not to nod off or move to a more exciting blog–this is important. All of those niceties that come from China and Vietnam and so on usually come by boat and the IMO decides what is OK and what is not OK. The cost of international trade, both the price we all pay for stuff and the cost of the carbon and pollution and human costs of working on container ships, is regulated and decided by IMO.

So IMO 2020 is the regulation to limit the sulfur released by ships into the air from burning bunker fuel. Next year the fuel for a vessel must be reduced in sulfur or the ship must have scrubbers installed, or the vessel burns liquified natural gas instead. From what I read on various shipping information websites, the regulation was ignored by the oil industry and shipping as neither wanted to make investments if the other would not and if they both did not then maybe some, like our President, might delay the implementation. This was described in the press as the form of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The date is now less than a year away, and the IMO has not delayed the IMO 2020!

A funny happened, big oil discovered that bunker fuel–the fuel for most container ships–could be a money maker. This fuel is the sticky remains of refining crude oil to get gasoline and other more volatile products from raw petroleum, and it is full of sulfur because it is dregs. It is cheap, and there is lots of it. According to reports that I read, the oil refineries can remix the dregs and refine the gunk a bit more, and charge more, and pop they are green, and their mark-up is so much better! All over the world, there was talk about a crisis as there would not be enough low-sulfur fuel and this would cause an increase in prices. This could double fuel prices! Panick! President Trump demanded an extension and refinery stock prices tanked (ok, that is a bit of a cheap pun).

Now, prices will likely be about 50% higher for the low sulfur fuel next year according to the reports I read on the Internet. President Trump has backed away from his demands after a discussion with petroleum industry experts and executives. The stocks of refining companies went back up in price. Apparently, there have been billions of dollars invested in producing this better lower sulfur and higher margin product in the vast amounts needed to fuel the world’s cargo ships.

I also read that ships that are inefficient and do not have scrubbers are being scrapped. The ships will not be missed and the steel recovered is cheaper to recycle than to make steel from raw materials. Funny, the reduced cost of recycled steel now coming on the market will likely make the steel trade-war less critical. It is excellent and cheap and likely headed into our value chain for manufacturing. And would you not be surprised to learn that IMO has now sent a standard for ship recycling (see Ship Recycling)! There are still folks cheating, but we are getting somewhere now.

Next, ships that have scrubbers or are getting scrubbers for sulfur in the next six months will be able to use the much cheaper old-style gunk. I read that the scrubbers installation cost will be paid for in reduced fuel costs, reported at twenty million a ship, in a year or so. The shipyards are fully booked now installing scrubbers.

So I agree with the President, we can make green work. Not exactly the way either of us imagined when we wrote our letters, I think.

Finally, I invested in Global Ship Leasing (GSL) preferred stock.  So I am not just someone who sits on the sidelines. I make money, 10% + yield, and will continue to watch and image a better world.

I remember years ago talking to my first boss back in Michigan, Chris, in Bath in the 1980s. He said that the plan for him and the other owner of SysDaComp, Roger, was “55 and out.” He told me with a glint of slight greed in his eyes about something new called a 401K that would make this work–events happened and I know that they worked into their sixties. But I always remembered that discussion with Chris and his suggestion that I, then twenty-two years old, should plan to make “55 and out.” Well, I am now that age and I will not stop working tomorrow.

My family store

Roger and my dad were good friends and they are fishing together in Heaven. In Heaven the fishing is always good, but who gets the best fish is what it is all about. I imagine there in Heaven they chat about how they had to work into their sixties to support their families and of course to pay for their fishing boats. Bob’s is called The Blue Streak, my sister uses it now. Roger’s was unchristened, and Bob called it Rock Finder when Roger was not around–last I heard it sank (Dad loved a good story and most were true). I believe they both would talk about how they could not stop working at 55, but at least they got to fish most weekends and many nights in Michigan’s Summers and Fall.

Dad

For me it is not the money, I think I could make it work having worked for a well-known shoe company for more than twenty years. Our family would have to cut back and not eat out and would have to travel by car for holidays and find cheap hotels, but I could make it work. Unlike Chris, Roger, and Dad, I am working for health insurance at 55. At $2000 a month for my wife and me and that without Dental, it just too costly to retire.

Of course, if the stock market goes up, and the shoe company keeps doing well and they don’t suddenly notice the over-50 reasonable-compensated computer guy that could be replaced by two or three young folks or many many out-sourced folks (I am still pretty good), and I stay well, I could retire at 58. Yes, Susie–the wife–would be 59 1/2 then, and we could use the IRA for health insurance cost and… I can and will make this work. And maybe the president will do something about the costs…

Yes, I am hoping to stop before something stops me. Bob and Roger did not get real old. They left for the happy fishing grounds too early, and they are missed. I think I would like to see more before I join the fishing. So yes I will try to stop at about 58. I am cutting the sugar. Getting the late on-set diabetes under control. Lost 25+ pounds. Yes–I want to get real old. I have all those robots to build. There is that AI thing. And all those models I bought and not put together yet.

So not “55 and out,” but working on staying so long that 55 will be well like 25. I am just getting started!

I plan to write a story each week and post it here. I have no subjects other than what I sort of learned that week that has me thinking.

Susie, wife, and I are traveling to Florida in the first week of May. There we will join some friends, the Smith Family, to see their daughter graduate from Ringling College with a degree in animation. We will then travel to Orlando and see Micky Mouse and then fly back. It is a Tuesday night through Sunday trip. A rushed trip. It is an experiment if my wife can still travel. It is a chance to see Disney World in Florida again We live on the West Coast and Disneyland is even a drivable and thus is our usual Disney choice.

What has me writing is the way I set-up the trip. I did it all myself online using two websites. I purchased the flights, car, and first hotel on Expedia. I used Disney’s site for Micky. In the past, I would contact AAA of Oregon and have them do it. I do not want to get a date wrong or spell a name wrong or miss out on some great deal so I would use travel agents. I have paid $100 at least once to untangle a flight and even had Susie and I flying to the same place but somehow on different planes (the flights left at almost the same time from the same airport from the same airlines!). Now it costs an additional $50 or more per reservation to have a travel agent set-up the flights. And the nice voice on the phone, the calmness of the process, and the certainty that a mistake would just be fixed without comment or cost I sorely miss now. But I am a computer guy–I can do this!

The next step was to find something at The Mouse. First, all the parks websites are different. So I had to do Disney World which is the Florida Disney resort and parks. Once I did that I had to find where one orders hotels and all that stuff. Then I had to find a room at the correct hotel, the Smiths already had their reservations. Wilderness Lodge had a room on the courtyard. I selected that and added in for almost again the same amount of money, no small amount, for three-day park-hopper pass.

I did not log on. Need to log on. Reset password. Start over? Everything is in my cart. Good, buy.

Not good. I have no passes. Call The Mouse. Have to spell my name. The computer voice keeps spelling it with an “e” until it gives up and sends me to a human. No passes, but we can fix that. Takes forty-five minutes on the phone to fix it. Raelle, the cast member who helped me, informs me of my passes number by spelling out all the letters by using Disney characters, “‘G’ like Goofy.” And she points out that they are installing new magic in the online system and she might have to restart. We get it all together. I have to use the recently magic-revised online software to link my passes. Raelle gives me her direct line and wishes me a “magical day.” I get an email from her that also has the information. Nice!

So on to the magically improved online experience. I have learned that the website for Disney World has an experience section and that is where we do this magic. I attempt to link the passes to the icons with mine and Susie’s name. There are four Susie’s! I pick the first one. Now I have two different Susie’s. One gets to use the room. The other Susie gets a pass.

Call back. Raelle is not available so I leave her a message. I miss the callback. I get a message from Raelle. She tells me to have a magical day after telling me I need the Experience Internet helpdesk. She keeps in character and is excited that Susie can be so many people at once. Very magical. I call her back and get someone else and they route me to Melissa in Internet support who I thought called herself Maleficent. I misheard. She merges all the Susies. Melissa forgets to wish me a magical day. Finally, it is all done and magical.

So I think I have everything done. This doing it yourself is not that fun and as I have seen, not only do you have to deal with your mistakes, there are times when magic is being applied and things get more Maleficent than you would like. There are Raelle’s and Melissa’s out there to help you and they are nice to meet on the phone. Still nervous that I have something wrong, but it seems done.