Thursday, September 4, 2008

election resources

so I'm supporting barack obama for president.  some of my friends are supporting mccain.  i respect their opinions and i think that there are many substantive differences between the candidates.  i believe the policy distinctions along with some basic character judgements are enough for most people to make a decision.  i tend to get frustrated when anyone misrepresent candidate positions or history of either side, because given the previous point about substantive distinctions being so clear, it's really unnecessary to make stuff up.  so what ever side you are on, please, just get the facts.
one thing i've heard a lot about (conservative emails, pundits, candidates, etc) is how obama wants to raise taxes in an extreme way.  i think there is a pretty simple way to illustrate the positions here.  just look at this chart - click it to enlarge it.  i believe it was from the washington post originally.  it's pretty clear that mccain gives the biggest tax cuts to the wealthiest and the smallest tax cuts to the poorest.  it's pretty clear that obama's plan favors the poorest americans over the wealthiest.  just look at it, it's easy to visually process.  no need to jump into nuance here.   you've got to be making over $600K per year to see a tax increase under obama's plan.

more tax policy detail: http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/11/news/economy/candidates_taxproposals_tpc/
you'll also get emails claiming all kinds of things like obama is a muslim, or obama wants to tax home sales, etc.  whenever you hear something hard to believe, just look it up on a non-partisan website like factcheck.org.  and if you find out it is incorrect, you should consider the trustworthiness of the source in the future and confront them with the facts.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

life insurance - not optional anymore

when it was just emily and i, we considered supplemental life insurance as something that we didn't absolutely need.  but with the baby on the way, it's time to cross another one of life's thresholds and be prepared for unforeseen circumstances to protect our family.  cnn - money has a nice overview of life insurance in general and i've had a decent experience thus far using insure.com to quote from several different providers.  i'm currently waiting to hear back from some trusted advisors before i commit, but i'm finding that this life insurance thing isn't quite as hard as i expected it to be if you stick with the basics.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

a bundle on the way

come the end of july, our family is expected to grow.  we're very excited and know that our lives are about to change dramatically.  it's already changed my perspective on many things.  whenever i'm not having a great day, seeing the ultrasound on my phone's wall-paper puts a smile on my face.