Sep 7th, 2010 at 11:01 pm by susie
My Heart’s Too Easy to Break, the late Amy Farris.
Good Vibrations, Brian Wilson from “Smile.”
Falling Slowly, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.
El Amor de Mi Vida, Warren Zevon from “The Wind,” his last album.
A Dream Goes on Forever, Todd Rundgren.
Sep 7th, 2010 at 5:08 pm by susie
Has Republicans and Dems tied at 46% on generic ballot. I’m sure this will be duly noted on every media outlet.
This is a righteous rant pointing out that what we have is a complete fucking fail. It’s a failure of our political institutions, of our financial system, of our economy as structured, of the economics profession, of unelected elite GOP Daddies who are supposed to fix things, of the media, of the whole fucking thing. Extended 9.5%+ unemployment is not ok. It means something is seriously fucking wrong, and the people in charge are unwilling or for whatever reason (including being idiots) unable to fix the problem.
New ad from ACFSME:
Sep 7th, 2010 at 3:46 pm by susie
To recap, a person is allowed to decide when to start drawing Social Security payments from the government. You can get them at 62, at 70, or anyplace in between. There is an obvious attraction to getting it sooner rather than later, and about 45% of those eligible choose to start getting the checks on their 62nd birthday.
The reason that the other 55% hold off is that the older you are when you start, the bigger the checks become. The payments for a person starting at 70 are about 70% higher than for a person starting at 62. (But relatively few hold out all the way until 70. The median age is 63.)
That trade-off, forgoing some years of payments to make the size of those payments bigger, sets up an interesting little finance problem which I discussed a year ago with the help of some annuity prices I found on-line. (It’s a good post. Here’s another link.)
The main conclusion from my analysis was that, unless you know you are likely to shuffle off your mortal coil earlier than actuarially expected, you should hold out until age 70. In other words, most Americans get this wrong.
Continue Reading »
Sep 7th, 2010 at 3:41 pm by susie
Mayor Daley is retiring. Will Rahm resign so he can run? Here’s hoping…
Sep 7th, 2010 at 3:36 pm by susie
There’s a real disconnect between white progressives and the working class, and I’m going to assume that the fact that the new local fitness center is being built in Fishtown, right in the middle of Hipster Heaven, with non-union labor, will give the intended patrons even a moment’s pause.
I’d love to be wrong, of course.
Sep 7th, 2010 at 3:30 pm by susie
I previously posted a story about this little boy, whose insurance company stopped paying for his neuroblastoma treatment. Fortunately for his family, Children’s Hospital decided to treat him anyway and worry about payment later.
Kyle died yesterday and his family is grateful for every day they had.
Obviously, not enough people do. But it looks like it might be good for you!
Sep 7th, 2010 at 2:25 pm by susie
“All my life I’ve heard Latin America described as a failed society (or collection of failed societies) because of its grotesque maldistribution of wealth. Peasants in rags beg for food outside the high walls of opulent villas, and so on. But according to the Central Intelligence Agency (whose patriotism I hesitate to question), income distribution in the United States is more unequal than in Guyana, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and roughly on par with Uruguay, Argentina, and Ecuador. Income inequality is actually declining in Latin America even as it continues to increase in the United States.Economically speaking, the richest nation on earth is starting to resemble a banana republic. The main difference is that the United States is big enough to maintain geographic distance between the villa-dweller and the beggar.“
Not in the big city, it isn’t. I already see crime escalating and bleeding over into the expensive neighborhoods. After all, as Wilie Sutton said, “It’s where the money is.”
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