Thursday, January 8, 2009 by Special Contributor.

Regular correspondent Geno sent this along:

Yesterday I went to my financial planner with a check for $30,000 and purchased a fixed-index annuity. I had withdrawn the money from a passbook savings account that paid me .75% interest, and when I purchased the annuity I got an immediate 15% bonus ($4500).

So, my $30M in the savings account would earn me about $300 a year after compounding, but the 15% bonus on the annuity earned me $4500. That equals $34,450 or an increase of $4500. The downside is that I can only draw out %15 of it per year for income if I need it. I don’t need it.

I have a half dozen of those, and a couple are well above $100M–and each of them will let me draw out 10% per year for income if I need it. I don’t need it–because…

…Mrs Geno and I sat down last night and figured it out. Since President-elect Obama’s tax plan will ensure that no one earning less than $50 will have to pay income tax, she and I will join the Democrat party in 2010. She plans to retire in 2010–after which we will both be pensioners, earning prolly around $27,000 and only withdrawing enough from our annuities to stay below the $50M cut-off line.

Of course, once we are democrats we will vote to make sure that the arrogant people earning above $50M get no tax relief. Screw them, the selfish f***ers.

Hoperfully Universal Health Care will have become a reality by then or shortly thereafter. It sure would be nice to sit back with $50M and not have to pay anything out for taxes or victimization expenses like health care and such. Mebbe we can get a tax rebate for driving old cars–even though we will not have paid any taxes. I love liberalism.

I have always wanted to be a democrat because I love Katie Couric … and that Dan Rather was a hoot.

Posted in Guest Posts, Society, Politics & News, PC | 1 Comment »

Monday, January 5, 2009 by Dick.

Curmudgery.

I enjoy my role as a curmudgeon and we all know that Curmudgery sells newspapers better than kitten rescues. After all, we get a warm and fuzzy feeling in our hearts for the firemen who spend thousands of taxpayer dollars digging a bedraggled, mewling, critter out of a storm drain, only to have it procreate more brain-dead, sewer-jumping progeny to add to the gene pool. However, comma, that story doesn’t sell newspapers. It gets buried on page 34. Below the fold.

People want blood.

People want gore.

People want veins in their teeth.

At the race track we regularly repeated this litany that was true-to-life for most spectators:

Was there a crash? I hope there wasn’t a crash!
Was anybody hurt? I hope no one was hurt!
Was there blood? I hope there wasn’t blood!
Did anybody die?

Speaking of car wrecks, Happy New Year!

I most sincerely hope. You know the saying, “It can’t get any worse?” Well, of course it can but I doubt it can get any more surreal. I mean, who could make this stuff up? If I had written that Ken Lay went to jail but AIG CEO Martin Sullivan took $15 million in cash as his company but-for-the-grace-of-thee-and-me sank and that Merrill Lynch CEO Jeff Thain would ask for a $10 million bonus because he “kept the losses to only eleven billion dollars,” nobody would believe it.

It is dispiriting to have to hammer on the same bad behavior by crooks in business, crooks in finance, and congress critters.

So, here’s the deal. I want to smile more in this new year. Send me happy stories. I can’t guarantee I will spin all of them into columns but I can guarantee they will make me smile.

Posted in Big Thoughts, Random Access | 1 Comment »