I realize it's a bit of a stretch connecting politics to what is ostensibly a sports blog. Well, I guess Obama did do a puff piece on SportsCenter with the droopy-eyed Stuart Scott.
Anyhow, Obama may have lost hundreds of thousands of votes on Wednesday from the "white guilt" Obama voting bloc, as Obama revealed that he might not actually be black when he confused Sanford and Son with The Jeffersons . The mishap ocurred during a campaign stop in which he was criticizing Republican efforts in 2005 to partially privatize social security.
"Could you imagine if you had your Social Security invested in the stock market these last two weeks, these last two months? You wouldn't need Social Security. You'd be having a -- like, what was it, Sanford and Son. `I'm coming Weezie!"
You could just as easily say to someone who had their retirement savings invested in the stock market, "Could you imagine if you had invested in Social Security?"
Suppose that in November 1974 a theoretical person set to retire in November 2008 gave $1,000 to Social Security to be returned to them 40 years later (what, again, is the point of this?). Today, it takes over $3,000 dollars to match the buying power of one thousand 1974 dollars. The government just divided your savings by one third. Thanks, FDR!
That same $1,000 would be worth at least $10,000 today had it been put into an index fund... that's after the recent market downturn. That's not some kind of complicated market wizardry, it's a fucking index fund.
These next four years are going to suck.
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Speaking of 1970s television, I was highly disappointed in the debates this year. Not because the two candidates failed to deliver knock out blows, but because at no point did Obama purse his lips, look at McCain with disdain and inquire:
Whatchu talkin' bout McCain?!
even with "privatized" social security, we would still have the option of whether or not to put money into the stock market, and we would still have a good chunk of it set up as fixed income. Either Obama didn't read the actual proposal or he's intentionally mis-characterizing it and misleading his followers.
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