Decided to wade thru the forty pounds of stuff about health insurance that has piled up since my medicare eligibility hove into sight. Let's see. We have Medicare, Part A, which covers hospitalization and is actually free. There is Medicare Part B which covers some doctor's visits and some shots and tests. That's $93 out of your social security check. Doesn't cover annual physicals which are $500 a pop. Medicare, either sort, has pretty high deductibles.
If the high deductibles are scary there is a raft of private insurance out there that offers all sorts of coverage for all sorts of prices.
Then if you are onto expensive medicines, there is Medicare Part D,m newly passed, that buys your pills. With a deductible of course.
Question. Are the extra coverages worth the monthly fee? Do I have the energy to read thru all this stuff and figure out what they cost and what they return?
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Hollywood has forgotten how to mix the soundtracks
Watched "Revenge of the Sith" on DVD last night with teenaged children. Lucas needs to find a new sound man. He forgot the fundamental rule of sound mixing, MAKE THE DIALOG LOUDER THAN THE SCORE. Dialog was almost impossible to hear over score, sound effects, crashing space craft and what ever. This isn't the only recent movie to suffer from inept sound men, "Charlie Wilson's War" was just as bad.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Can McCain balance the Federal Budget?
McCain will extend the Bush tax cuts, declare a gasoline tax moratorium, lower capital gains, and increase individual income tax deductions. He plans to balance the budget by reducing Federal spending. Question, is there enough fat to cut?
Well let's see. $18 billion in pork. $11.5 billion for fancy presidential helicopters. $30 billion in farm subsidies. We could declare the Interstate Highway system complete and close down the highway trust fund. That is good for $100 billion a year savings. Repeal the "energy bill" which is a $30 billion subsidy to the oil companies. Drop the ethanol subsidy. That's about $190 billion in savings right there. There is surely more.
Well let's see. $18 billion in pork. $11.5 billion for fancy presidential helicopters. $30 billion in farm subsidies. We could declare the Interstate Highway system complete and close down the highway trust fund. That is good for $100 billion a year savings. Repeal the "energy bill" which is a $30 billion subsidy to the oil companies. Drop the ethanol subsidy. That's about $190 billion in savings right there. There is surely more.
Surprise, retired military officers remain pro military
The Lehrer news hour did a length piece concerning retired military officers servicing as military commentators on the TV news. The piece was kicked off by a NY Times story (which I haven't read) which charged that all the military commentators on TV had received friendly treatment, briefings, junkets to Iraq, and other favors from the Pentagon. The NYT guy on the program called this illegal tampering with a free press. The officers in question were being buttered up to push the Administration's story over the air. This was illegal, unnatural, unconstitutional, and fattening.
Wow. What planet do NYT reporters live on? Does any grownup fail to understand that a retiree who has spent his working life in the service will share his service's view of things when he starts speaking as a TV pundit? And, I wouldn't have it any other way. I want military officers who are loyal to their branch of service. A guy who retires and then opines that we are doing it all wrong, the generals are losing the war, and we ought to quit, wasn't much of an officer on active service. Any how, the NYT is still outraged to find out what the rest of us know, that US officers are pro military and favor victory. And that they have friends still on active duty who give them valuable information.
Wow. What planet do NYT reporters live on? Does any grownup fail to understand that a retiree who has spent his working life in the service will share his service's view of things when he starts speaking as a TV pundit? And, I wouldn't have it any other way. I want military officers who are loyal to their branch of service. A guy who retires and then opines that we are doing it all wrong, the generals are losing the war, and we ought to quit, wasn't much of an officer on active service. Any how, the NYT is still outraged to find out what the rest of us know, that US officers are pro military and favor victory. And that they have friends still on active duty who give them valuable information.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Plastic turf scare mongering on Fox News
Just this minute Megyn Kelly was doing a story on toxic artificial turf (Astroturf). Some one has claimed the stuff is bad for kids. Fox did not tell us who made the claim, the chemical name of the bad stuff, the amount of the unnamed bad stuff in the plastic grass. All we got was an interview with a doctor who recommended we all watch our children for any sort of ill health.
Right. Watch your kids, and when they get sick blame the Astroturf. They will get sick sooner or later, that's part of being a kid. Salem witches were burned on this kind of "evidence". At least we won't burn the Astroturf, too much air pollution.
Right. Watch your kids, and when they get sick blame the Astroturf. They will get sick sooner or later, that's part of being a kid. Salem witches were burned on this kind of "evidence". At least we won't burn the Astroturf, too much air pollution.
Today is tax free day
I got that in an email from Senator Sununu this morning. According to someone's calculation as of today you have earned enough to pay your income taxes, the rest of the year your are working for yourself.
Now that the pain of doing my 1040's has faded somewhat, let's talk tax simplification. I'd be willing to give up all deductions, tax credits, dependent allowances, and other loopholes in return for a lower tax rate. Over the years, after days of staring at the forms, the rules, J.K. Lasser, and oceans of canceled checks, in th end, I wind up paying 17% of my real earnings. It would save me a sentence of hard time at the 1040, if all I had to do was multiple my earning by 0.17.
All those tax loopholes are in there cause we use the tax code to subsidize home ownership, raising families, oil companies, stock brokers, and any body who hires lobbyists to get a special tax break written into law.
It would be fairer to all if we dumped all the special rules. It would sure ease the pain of filling out the forms.
Now that the pain of doing my 1040's has faded somewhat, let's talk tax simplification. I'd be willing to give up all deductions, tax credits, dependent allowances, and other loopholes in return for a lower tax rate. Over the years, after days of staring at the forms, the rules, J.K. Lasser, and oceans of canceled checks, in th end, I wind up paying 17% of my real earnings. It would save me a sentence of hard time at the 1040, if all I had to do was multiple my earning by 0.17.
All those tax loopholes are in there cause we use the tax code to subsidize home ownership, raising families, oil companies, stock brokers, and any body who hires lobbyists to get a special tax break written into law.
It would be fairer to all if we dumped all the special rules. It would sure ease the pain of filling out the forms.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The search for XP
Youngest son needs a new laptop for Brooklyn Polytechnic, where he will be starting in the fall. Polytech offered a Lenovo T61 with Vista thru the student union for $1900. The Lenovo website offered the same machine for $1080. Some searching found a Dell with XP on it for $1100. XP was the deal maker, neither son nor I wanted to touch Vista with a ten foot pole. Thinking that Microsoft may drive XP off the marker completely, we ordered now, before the last XP machines are gone.
How Microsoft managed to bungle Vista is a story that needs telling some where.
The effort to retrofit XP into a Vista machine is unknown. The drivers, tiny bits of software that pass intructions down to the hardware, had to be rewritten for Vista. So a Vista machine will have Vista drivers, that probably won't work under XP. In principle the necessary XP drivers can be found on the Internet, but that is not guaranteed.
This is the second time this year that a child has needed a laptop and managed to avoid Vista there on.
How Microsoft managed to bungle Vista is a story that needs telling some where.
The effort to retrofit XP into a Vista machine is unknown. The drivers, tiny bits of software that pass intructions down to the hardware, had to be rewritten for Vista. So a Vista machine will have Vista drivers, that probably won't work under XP. In principle the necessary XP drivers can be found on the Internet, but that is not guaranteed.
This is the second time this year that a child has needed a laptop and managed to avoid Vista there on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)