Author: Jonathan Blundell

I'm a husband, father of three, blogger, podcaster, author and media geek who is hoping to live a simple life and follow The Way.

Candidates debate Social Security

Barack Obama wants to tax the wealthy, those over $200,000, to help improve Social Security. Sucks for the wealthy – but sure sounds good to the middle class (like myself) or the poor. Other Democratic candidates say they back that idea. But Hillary Clinton won’t address her plans publicly. She said she won’t address or advocate any specific fix until the budget was balanced.
Fred Thompson said he has his own ideas for Social Security, like price indexing. Other GOP candidates want to allow private investment accounts and while NPR didn’t address it, Mike Huckabee (and myself) wants to fund Social Security with the money raised from the FairTax. Abolish the income tax and pay for Medicaid and Social Security with sales tax rather than money from my pay check. When the 78 million baby boomers end up on Social Security, they’ll be paying into the system just like everyone else everytime they go buy a loaf of bread or a new car.
Here’s an interesting stat as to why Social Security is going bankrupt…
The first person to receive a Social Security benefit was Ernest Ackerman, who paid 5 cents into Social Security during one day of work. He retired the next day and was paid 17 cents for his retirement in January 1937. This was a one-time, lump-sum pay-out, which was the only form of benefits paid during the start-up period January 1937 through December 1939. The first person to receive monthly retirement benefits was Ida Mae Fuller of Brattleboro, Vermont. Her first check, dated January 31, 1940 was in the amount of US$22.54.
I think Ackerman got one heck of a deal. That’s more than 3 times the return on an investment. Sign me up -except that the system is going bankrupt any day now.

Digital clocks ‘Fall Back’ too early

Dan and Brian told me last night they were frustrated Sunday morning when their smart clocks, or atomic clocks reset themselves for daylight savings time.
That would be a great feature (our GPS unit did the same) if daylight savings time would have been last week. The downside is, that thanks to Congress, daylight savings time didn’t take place last week.
NPR has the scoop – well some of it at least.

Get your money back

From NPR….

When the housing market sags, some sellers drop their asking price. A Pittsburgh-area couple has hit upon a new twist. After trying to sell for almost a year, Bob and Ricki Husick are making this offer: buy their house now for $399,000 and get your money back when they die. That could be a long wait, as they’re only in their 50s. Still, they’ve already received four offers.

Huckabee passes contribution goal

The Mike Huckabee campaign set an online goal for the month of October: to raise $1 more than they did during the last quarter of fundraising. That goal of $1,034,487 was passed early today and the now the campaign has raised over $1,043,322.55 online.

The news keeps getting better and better…