CyberCJH's Blog

If I were dictator of the United States, this is how I would fix our budget problems.

• Social Security
  New age at which you’re now eligible for benefits: 81 years old
  When social security was first enacted in 1935, the law provided a monthly benefit to individuals age 65 and older and no longer working. But, the average life expectancy in 1935 was just about 62 years. Thus, the majority of people would be dead before they’d collect social security. That is how the system was supposed to work – to provide income in the last years of life, not the last decades of life. The program will be phased out over a period of several decades and payroll deductions will cease immediately. You’ll see receive a pro-rata share of what you paid into it, but if you’re not yet at retirement age, it’s time to start saving.
• Medicare / Medicaid
  Abolished and replaced with a Canada / UK type of National Health System
  Yeah, yeah. B*tch and moan all you want. Nothing can change the fact that we in the US spend over $4,000 per person each year on health care compared to Canada at $2,000 and the UK at $1,700. Yet, we consistently score lower than these countries on a number of items, such as life expectancy, infant mortality rate and health care cost as a percent of the GDP. Government run health care works when implemented and administrated correctly.
• IRS
  Abolished and replaced with a National Flat Income Tax
  Tax returns will be one page long and will take no more than one hour to complete. The more you make, the more you pay. Simple and fair.
• National Sales Tax
  Implemented immediately.
  By law, the government would levy a VAT of 7%, states could levy up to a further 2.5% and local governments could levy up to an additional 0.5%.

I think those 4 things along would more than solve our budge problems.

What about you? What would you do?

written by cybercjh

SmartMoney recently put together a list of ten things not to buy in 2010. Most of the stuff in this list seems to make sense.

1. DVDs : Netflix and Cable Video-On-Demand services are taking hold.
2. Home Phone Service : Go cell-phone only. Consider Skype.
3. External Hard Drives : Switch to online backup services.
4. Unpopular Smartphones : Fewer developers are likely to create applications and other products that cater to those phones.
5. Compact Digital Cameras : These cameras produce pictures that more accurately represent what’s in their viewfinders, but they cost a lot.
6. Newspaper Subscriptions : Replaced by a growing online media presence – much of which is accessible for free
7. CDs : Uh, hello. This is a no-brainer.
8. New College Textbooks : Shop for used textbooks to save up to 90%.
9. Gas Guzzling Cars : Gas prices are going back up.
10. Energy-Inefficient Home Appliances : The government is offering a federal tax credit of up to $1,500 on energy-efficient home upgrades through Dec. 31, 2016

I agree with all of them except numbers 2 & 3.

Home Phone Service : For us, it’s still not cost effective to drop the land line. We use it too much, especially when Tina works from home. And, we’re getting such a good deal with BellSouth right now that it wouldn’t make sense to switch to a VoIP service which would, probably, end up costing more. So, we’re keeping the Home Phone Service for 2010, and probably beyond.

External Hard Drives : I don’t trust online back services. I mean, I trust them to back up with music and even my pictures, to an extent. But, images of old bank statements and tax returns? Please. Those need to stay in my control, not someone else’s.

What do you think?

written by cybercjh

So long, wamu.com. So long, Washington Mutual.

You’re currently in the process of being amalgamated into one of the most evil financial entities on earth.

Starting Sunday, wamu.com will redirect itself to chase.com.

You were unfairly, unjustly and quite possibly illegally forced to sell yourself out to Chase. I will miss you. You were my favorite bank. But, now you’re in the hands of the supreme and evil overlord of the banking industry.

I’m sorry to see you go.

written by cybercjh

We drove up to the Vero Fashion Outlets in Vero Beach on Saturday.

Wow, what a sea of vacancy that place has become. When we first moved to Florida 3 years ago, it looked like the outlets were at almost 100% capacity.

Now, there are only about 53 stores filling the 77 that exist at the outlet mall. That’s a 31% vacancy rate. Sign of the times, I guess.

But, it was an otherwise great day. It was hot, but not ssooooooooo hot and the sun stayed in most of the time, so we didn’t bake. Emma slept almost the entire time we were there except for a few moments in The Children’s Place where we had to retreat into one of the fitting rooms so she could have something to eat.

written by cybercjh

In October of last year, I called BellSouth (who once was AT&T in big letters but now at&t in little letters) to tell them our monthly bill was just too high and they needed to do something about it.

At the time, we were paying …

• Local Service + Calling Features = $41
• Unlimited Long Distance = $23
• 6 Mbps DSL = $43
• TOTAL = $107

I asked them to lower the bill otherwise I would look into alternate services. To my surprise, they were more than willing to work with me and lower my bill to …

• Local Service + Calling Features = $24
• Unlimited Long Distance = $17
• 6 Mpbs DSL = $43
• TOTAL = $84

So, that phone call chopped 21% off of our monthly bill.

But today, I see our bill is up to $97. Apparently, whatever promotion we were on expired. So, I called them up again and asked what they could do to lower our bill. Much to my surprise, they lowered it even further than before.

• Local Service + Calling Features = $26
• Unlimited Long Distance = $13
• 6 Mpbs DSL = $23 for the next 6 months, $38 after that
• TOTAL = $62 for the next 6 months, $77 after that

So, for the next 6 months, we will save 42% off what our bill was last October and 28% after that.

Hey, better in my pocket than in their coffers. The guy told me to call back around the third week of December as they’ll probably be running new specials around that time. I wonder how low I can get our bill down too.

written by cybercjh