Social Security Is A Mindless, Shameless Government Bureaucracy

The Social Security Administration is a shameless government bureaucracy that refuses to take responsibility and make corrections for the bad advice it gives to retirees. They cheated my wife out of $5,000 a year in benefits, $30,000 lifetime so far, by giving her bad advice and then refusing to fix it. When my wife turned her full SS retirement age in 2007, her earned benefit (from her employment SS taxes) was $38 a month more than her spousal benefit (which is half of my SS benefit). She called SS and asked them which benefit she should take - Earned or Spousal. SS told her, of course, take the higher earned benefit, so she did. 16 months later, I read a financial article, that correctly stated that if she had taken her spousal benefit and waited 4 years until age 70, she could switch to her earned benefit then and receive 8% more for each of 4 years for a total increase of 32% to her original earned benefit. That would have been an increase of over $400 to her monthly SS check for an additional $5,000 a year for the rest of her life (note SS ended this "switch" program recently, but it was in effect back then, but you still get an additional 8% a year if you delay collecting any SS benefits until age 70).

So we immediately contacted SS and told them the facts and that we would like to return the extra $38 a month collected for 16 months, go to spousal benefits starting with the first year 2007, so that at age 70 my wife could switch to her 32% higher earned benefit. SS refused. They said that she could return the entire 16 months of SS collected (about $20,000) and then switch to earned benefit at age 70 for 16% more not 32% more because it would use year 2009, not 2007 to make the calculation. That deal made no economic sense for us so we did not do that. However, we both still very much resent the mindless bureaucrats at Social Security who make retirees pay for SS bureaucratic mistakes/bad advice given to us retirees. If SS had been a corporation instead of a government bureaucracy, no doubt that we would have won our case.

Doctors - Here's Where to Research For A Tinnitus Cure

 I have tinnitus which is a constant buzzing/ringing in your ears. It's very frustrating and there is no cure for it. Doctors say it has nothing to do with your ears. It is an internal issue/damage within your brain. However, there are activities that temporary stop the ringing/buzzing. So doctors, here's where to research for a cure:

1. Given that tinnitus has nothing to do with your ears, why do loud enough sounds such as music, the noise from multiple pickleball courts with people playing on them, lawn mowers and leaf blowers "drown out" tinnitus so I don't hear it if it has nothing to do with my ears? Whatever it is, can it be used to "trick" tinnitus from disturbing me?
2. When I am playing pinochle with friends which also involves conversation and "thinking", why am I not hearing/noticing my tinnitus? Similarly when I am deep in thought focused on something such as researching my family tree or in conversation with others, shopping in a store for just about anything, or sometimes just watching a TV program or news program that interests me, why am I not hearing my tinnitus? Whatever it is, can it be used to "trick" tinnitus from disturbing me?
3. When I am sleeping, I don't hear my tinnitus. When I wake up, I hear it immediately (which can make it difficult to fall back to sleep given that, as a diabetic, I wake up multiple times at night to use the bathroom). What is the mechanism in being asleep that turns off tinnitus? Whatever it is, can it be used to "trick" tinnitus from disturbing me?

Retirement has been an Evolution

 

I remember when I retired over 15 years ago, I both looked forward to not working anymore and also had some reservations as to how I was going to keep from getting bored with all that free time. How I keep from getting bored is different now then the earlier years of my retirement.

1. At the beginning of my retirement, I kept from being bored by:

a. Playing golf twice a week.

b. Doing a lot of financial planning, seminars, and investing the first 5 years.

c. Doing a lot of family tree research

d. Planning and taking 3 to 4 vacations a year for the first 10 years and before Covid hit. Traveled to much of the US and to 25 nations in Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Costa Rica.

e. Taking lots of photos and videos of vacations and family and editing them.

f. I exercised daily on a treadmill for 3o minutes (walking at a brisk five miles an hour) and then increased that to twice a day.

2. As time progressed:

a. I dropped golf which I was never good at and play pickleball 5 days a week which I am good at. I had to drop the treadmill due to knee problems and the recumbent bike never gave me the good blood sugar results that the treadmill gave so I dropped it too.

b. Got into a pinochle group for men, women, and couples. The men and women's groups play once a week and then go to lunch together. There's also a monthly pinochle Men's nightly pinochle game with dinner first, and the same for a monthly couples pinochle game with dinner first.

c. Put hundreds of gigabytes of edited photos and videos for family, vacations, Family research, and internet photos of amazing places, nature, etc., Investment Advice, on a website that I share with family through links and that I continue to update.

d. Created a blog for my interests and thoughts on Economics, finance, and politics.

3. Most recently:

a. Our diabetes causing frequent bathroom trips has made the guided tour vacations we liked to take impractical. fortunately, we have seen almost everything we wanted to see.

b. So we started taking more all inclusive beach vacations since bathrooms by the pool and ocean are always near by. However, we have gotten bored with them and the food and nightly shows are not as good as in the past, so we stopped doing them.

c. Still doing pickleball, pinochle, and family tree research.

d. Some TV time, more computer time including reading a newspaper on line and playing pinochle and Hearts on my computer with my wife and "robots" or just robots.

e. Going out for lunch and dinner more often.

f. Giving investment advice to young family members.

The Debt Ceiling and How to Responsibly Eliminate It

 

The Debt Ceiling and How to Responsibly Eliminate It

The debt ceiling is a limit on the total amount of government borrowing. First put in place by Congress during World War I, it was meant to give blanket authorization for the Treasury Department to borrow money up to a set amount.

1. This is the "PAYMENT " side of government responsibilities.

Therefore the debt ceiling and all the political fighting, which has occurred 79 times to raise it when it is not enough to pay the nation's bills that are in the budget did not exist before World War 1. Therefore, it has been proven possible to live without it.

As previously mentioned the debt ceiling is a product of the budgets approved by Congress. Therein lies the problem that needs to be fixed. It is the Constitutional duty of Congress to pass a budget every year. It seldom does.

2. This is the "SPENDING" side of government responsibilities.

Instead of doing its job, Congress rarely passes an annual budget and consequently gets into many other fights during the year to keep the government running and passes temporary "Continuing Resolutions" during each year to authorize spending. Unfortunately these Continuing Resolutions are always a fixed percentage increase over last year - no thinking involved.

In other words, instead of making the necessary hard decisions on where to raise and where to cut spending based on anticipated tax revenues and by how much that would and should be involved in a true budget process, Congress ignores its true responsibilities and "kicks the can down the road".

THIS IS HOW TO FIX IT:

Eliminate Continuing Resolutions. Make the budget a truly MANDATORY annual event. If the political parties cannot agree on a budget for the new fiscal year by the annual budget deadline, then automatically cut last year's budget by 10% across the board and let that be the new mandatory annual budget until Congress passes a real budget. Also, to insure that Congress "lives within its means" make it mandatory, with the exception of when we are in a war, that total budget spending may not increase more than inflation plus may not exceed anticipated tax receipts by more than 5%.

Such a budget result (10% cut to last year's budget for the new annual fiscal budget) would be unacceptable to all political parties and that fact plus voter anger on spending cuts such as Social Security and welfare would force Congress to do its job and actually make the necessary hard decisions, based on actual tax revenues, on what areas to cut spending and what areas to increase spending within each annual budget and by how much. Those necessary decisions are not being made today and should be. If we do not implement those recommendations, eventually the Untied States will not be able to borrow enough money to pay its bills and debt obligations, and as happened to other nations, the entire economy will crash with dire results for all of us.

Let me give Congress a "head start" on where to cut the budget - SUBSIDIES. There are thousands of Federal subsidies with as many as 100 new Federal subsidies added each year. These subsidies are hidden from view - being buried in many different "Departmental" budgets and amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars and maybe even over a trillion dollars each year. Each subsidy overrides the free marketplace and therefore is a "Slice of Communism" - the most failed economic system in the world.

Minimally put all subsidies in a single "Departmental" Subsidy budget and subdivide it by type of subsidy so that all of us can view the amounts spent of each type of subsidy. The goal is to permanently Eliminate all Federal subsidies within 10 years or less. Most are small enough that they can be eliminated in just one year. Agricultural subsidies would probably need a 10 year reduction program before elimination because some of those subsidies, such as growing corn for ethanol production instead of food, have caused farmers to make key investments such as buying land to increase corn production.

The Real Heroes of Our Quality of Life

 

The Real Heroes of Our Quality of Life

History teaches us the importance of heroes such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, etc.. and they were important. However, they had nothing to do with the great quality of life we have today compared to most human beings throughout history. That honor goes to the important inventors. Most of us, including me, don't know their names, but what they did gave us a great quality of life. These important inventions include (think what our life would be like today if none of these would have been invented):

1. The light bulb in conjunction with Commercial electricity delivered to our homes and businesses to make light bulbs and many more appliances work.

2. Indoor heating.

3. The Refrigerator.

4. Air Conditioning.

5. Washing machines and dryers.

5. Motorized Land Vehicles - Cars, trucks, trains, and tractors.

6. Airplanes.

7. Phones.

8. Television

9. Computers.

10. The Atom Bomb - probably the only reason we haven't had a World War in 78 years, given that the first two World Wars were only 20 years apart. 70 million people were killed in World War 2 and millions more wounded. Conventional weapons have vastly improved since then.

Watching TV Is No Fun Anymore.

Watching TV is no fun anymore. 40 to 50% of the time is devoted to commercials compared to 20% prior to cable TV which promised us "No commercials" as compensation for paying for what was then completely free TV. In addition to currently expensive cable TV, when the actual program is on, there is that annoying Channel symbol or channel wording on the bottom right corner of the TV. Never had that with free TV. In addition, while the program is on, there are occasional mini-commercials in either writing or video on the entire bottom of the screen. Never had that with free TV. Sometimes there is fixed commercial wording in one or two of the other corners of the TV. Never had that with free TV.

Black People Reparations Have Been Paid in Full

 Black People Reparations Have Been Paid in Full

Today, there is a lot of talk about government paying "reparations" to Black people for slavery and discrimination. Some proposals would reward Black people millions of dollars. Think of that - every or many black people would become millionaires paid for by the rest of us who would mostly remain non-millionaires. The rest of us would automatically become poorer through more taxes, interest and principal paid on debt, and devaluation of what a dollar is worth. The truth is for Black people your reparations have been paid in full for the following reasons:

1. No one alive today was a slave nor are any slave owners alive. Slavery was eliminated at the end of the civil war in 1865 158 years ago.

2. The Supreme Court outlawed segregation in 1954. Anyone alive in 1954 in now 69 years old (newborn babies in 1954) or older or dead.

3. The Civil Rights Act banning employment discrimination was passed in 1964 plus the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. Anyone who was working then (using 18 years old and older) are now 77 years old or older (that is mostly retired) or dead.

4. The average annual cost of a free public school student education in America (13 years - Kindergarten through 12th grade) is $10,000 a year for a total of $130,000. In large cities where Blacks live in large numbers, the average annual cost of a free public school education is $20,000 a year for a total of $260,000 for 13 years. While many Blacks took full advantage of that expensive free education, many other Blacks did not (either dropping out of school or not applying themselves to achieve good grades) and that is the reason why so many did not do well in employment results. That's on them, not the rest of us in America.

5. There are many government subsidies, scholarships, and easy to get student loans for college for Black people who cannot afford college. The rest of us paid for those programs. Those Blacks who did not take advantage of them did so voluntarily. That's on them, not the rest of us.

6. Affirmative Action, designed to help minorities including Blacks succeed in their employment was part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act plus was strengthened further in 1965 and 1969.

7. 50% of single parent households live in poverty compared to 10% of married households with children living in poverty. Easy to understand - two potential workers and two potential babysitters have much more opportunity to earn more money than one potential worker and one babysitter. Today, 3 out of 4 black babies are born to single parent households. Whose fault is that? Answer - Black mothers who have children voluntarily without getting married. This causes the rest of us workers to pay a fortune in government welfare payments to most of these deliberate single parents who for the most part don't work. Also, teenage boys from single parent households without fathers to guide them are much more likely to drop out of school and/or commit criminal acts.

8. The Black crime rate has been around 8 times the national average for decades. Hard to make money when part or all of your adult life is spent in jail. Plus with the loss of job experience due to jail time, it is harder to gain high paying jobs compared to non criminals who have been working hard while those Blacks deservedly were in jail. That's on the criminals, not the rest of us. Plus we law abiding citizens pay an annual fortune to sustain each person in jail.

Conclusion - Black reparations have been paid in full to every Black alive today. It is up to each Black person to take advantage of the huge fortune that has been invested in them by the rest of us.