The Week in Review: From Social Security to the $2.4 M commercial

Well, the business week has finally come to an end, and I'm glad that I've made it to another Friday. (That's a great movie by the way). At any rate, I thought I'd jot down a few things that caught my ear and attention.

First, I've been hearing and engaging in quite a few conversations about Bush's new Social Security plan. As I have not had the amount of time necessary to 'learn up' on this issue at present, I'll reserve my written opinion for now. However, from the overview I've received from biased parties thus far, I understand the issue to be allowing Americans to allocate a greater amount of their wages that would have previously gone into the black hole of Social Security to be used for their own 401k plans. Sounds good to me thus far, as I'm always for less government influence. Hey Gov, leave me the hell alone.

Another issue that kept coming up this week was one I had been aware of since the drive back home in the wee hours of Christmas morning. As I am a nerd, and I had an eight hour drive, and I didn't get off work until about 4 am, I flipped the AM/FM switch and started listening to the AM. It definitely kept me awake better than a whining country star doing a tired rendition of Silent Night. At any rate, the topic was the military's death benefit tax. A senator from, Ohio(?) maybe, was proposing we increase the death tax to $100,000 from the meager $12K offered at present. The opponent was surprisingly a widow whose husband had perished during Desert Storm. Now no one in their right mind would argue against helping a fallen soldier; they deserve their nation's utmost. However, the issue is whether or not there are better ways to provide this assistance, as first of all we can't afford this proposal, secondly there are already readily available insurance policies available to our finest, and lastly the death benefit was never meant to be substituted for any type of insurance policy whatsoever. (Anyone that thinks $12k is an insurance policy need not breathe any longer) It's definitely an intriguing issue that often leads to heated personas, but to me it's just another batch of political pork. Who would ever sacrifice a political career opposing giving assitance to our fallen heroes? Bush sure as hell didn't.

And finally, what the hell is the world coming to? What's that magazine that would always have the "signs the apocalypse is upon us?" Well, I wonder what that magazine would think about 30 seconds of air time going for 2.4 million dollars in a game that everyone already "knows" who is going to win. Never mind how far 2.4 million would go in Sri Lanka right now, or even Baghdad. If you don't believe me see the blog titled "Baghdad Burning."

That's it for me this posting. If you've had an interesting read please let me know what you think and give me your blog address so I can hit you back! Take care everybody.