Feldstein’s Folly on Social Security

What truly amazes me is the animosity towards social security as a program. Perhaps it just goes to show how well social security has served its beneficiar­ies that some people take its positive affect on society for granted. I know of so many people who would be destitute come retirement age if social security did not exist. $01K plans as we have seen have exploded, family emergencie­s happen, savings accounts do not pay that well, there are so many things that can happen that planning for retirement is difficult. Which is why 80 years ago F.D.R show a great need for a safety net for the retirement of the American people. Wall Street however sees social security as missed opportunit­ies for profit making. Which is why we are barraged by those who say wrongly that it doesn’t work.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: ‘Economy Desperately Needs A Short-Run Fix’

I admire Mr. Krugman’s unfailing sense of patriotic duty in calling out the wrong-head­ed economic direction and policies the lawmakers in Washington continue to focus on and push. We have to however ask ourselves, how much insanity are we going to continue to accept from our policy makers in Washington­? We have tangible evidence that the Bush tax cuts did nothing to grow oue economy, they instead are the prime driving factor in our short term deficit. We have historical data that proves that supply-sid­e economic theory is bogus and only serves the rich. We also have historical data from the depression years that when the private sector is depressed economical­ly, the government needs to step in and stimulate the economy by creating jobs. Instead, we are living in an insane world where the republican­s are driving the national conversati­on repeating all the talking points that have been proven wrong but are still being accepted as valid. Where can we get off this train wreck? When is someone going to wake up and say we have been going in the wrong direction for too long. It’s time to address the JOBS deficit once and for all.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

What do you want your tombstone to say?

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postaday2011

I would really like to be cremated and put on a mantle, and then fought over throughout the future generations because keeping me would bring good luck. Just kidding about the being fought over part. Eventually someone is going to put me somewhere permanently, I guess, I just don’t want to be buried. I have a thing against being underground, maybe it’s because I’m claustrophobic? I don’t know.

If there was going to be a tombstone or plaque, I would hope that someone would mention that I loved being a mother to my two children and that I was a wife who worked hard at being married. And that I loved a lot, laughed a lot, cooked a lot, read a lot and wrote a lot. If there is enough room, that I was a good listener, I was interested, curious and I cared.

I suppose that most often what we see on tombstones isn’t what the deceased planned but rather what the family feels best sums up the person they are mourning. Do I think that what I wrote above would actually be etched onto my tombstone? I think the cooking part and the laughing part, definitely. The wife and mother part would be in their own words and the rest probably wouldn’t make it in but you never know. I wonder if people’s spirits still lingered after passing on, how many would be upset by what they saw or didn’t see written on their tombstone. Would they even care? Does it really matter in the end? I suppose the tombstone is really only for posterity’s sake, you can’t take it with you.