Monday, October 13, 2008

A Little Politics Never Killed Anyone

Well, that's really not true. But whatever.

While procrastinating today, I saw this gem. (Teej, forgive me. I know you are all about the Obama love.)

My favorite part:

[Obama] also proposed allowing people to withdraw up to $10,000 from their retirement accounts without any penalty for the remainder of the year and 2009.


Can I just tell you what a craptastic idea that is? Do I need to explain all the reasons that it's a terrible, horrible, no-good, VERY BAD idea? The vast majority of Americans have nowhere near what they need in their retirement accounts to begin with. So let's make it easier to withdraw that money? Also, yeah, let's LOCK IN OUR LOSSES what with the market tanking. Yay! And then, let's get a big tax bill on that money, putting us right back in the problem of needing more than we have. And then, when we want to retire in 20 or 30 years, and there's not enough money, well, let's just make that someone else's problem.

Dude, I sympathize with having no money. A lot. We are still shouldering more debt than I ever thought I would have in my life. It sucks. But we still sock money into the retirement account and DON'T TOUCH IT.

It's not that I'm all busy with doodling "WG HEARTS MCCAIN" or anything, but this is exactly the kind of thing someone with NO REAL EXPERIENCE suggests.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

OK, now you to do a post about all of the ridiculous idiocy in McCain's various proposals and philosophies. Equal time, you know. :)

WG + Teej = Love.

WG + Teej + Politics = ERROR, FORMULA DOES NOT COMPUTE.

Anonymous said...

Excuse me, I was not told there would be any math here!

Pluswhich, if Obama were in office, one suspects he'd be just a teensy weensy bit better at listening to his advisers (advisors?) than either GWB or JMcC, and his adviso/ers would probably know stuff like, taking money out of your retirement account in a down market is a BAD thing.

kirsten said...

I really enjoy your blog and I
I rarely comment but politics brings out the best (or worst?) in me.
I think Obama is trying to come up with an EMERGENCY plan for the economy- and for some people their 401K may be there only hope to get out of debt. Also, you neglect to mention that (included in the same article you reference that
".. under Obama's approach the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers would see their taxes go up on average by $93,709 in 2009, For McCain, those same wealthy taxpayers would see an average reduction of $48,860"
HELLO? So Mccain is coming up with plans to help the wealthiest americans. Now that doesn't make sense to me. And don't get me started on Palin and her so called "experience."

Anonymous said...

Amen WG, amen.

The Gwench said...

"A Little Politics Never Killed Anyone..." Try telling that to Lincoln! Just kidding... I couldn't resist.

I so hate politics and haven't even turned the TV on lately because of it. Glad you're back, WG!