A Good Start

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Congress is considering RESA, the Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act, a bill that would represent a massive change to our retirement system, in particular our 401(k) system.  This bill would, among other things,

encourage more small employers to offer retirement savings plans and make it easier for companies to offer annuities that turn workers’ savings into a guaranteed annual income.

Among specific things that the House wants in such a bill are

  • a universal savings account, funded with post-tax dollars but with tax-free earnings and more flexible withdrawal rules than existing retirement accounts.
  • allow[ing] small employers to band together to offer 401(k)-type plans. By joining a so-called multiple-employer plan, or MEP, small companies can spread plan administrative costs over more participants, lowering fees.
  • encourag[ing] 401(k)-style plans to offer annuities, which help participants transform their balances into a lifetime income stream.

And

[Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Kevin (R, TX)] Brady said any new ability for people to tap into tax-preferred savings would be “very limited.”

Despite the support of AARP, the same organization that full-throatedly supported passage of Obamacare, this is a good start.

The ability to convert a retirement savings plan, if left to the option of the saver, can have advantages, even if I do continue to hold that annuities are not as good, in the long run, as investing.  However, once retirement starts, stability and predictability of income becomes important, and the long run will be shorter.

Too, the general moves toward making it easier, mechanically and fiscally, to save for one’s own retirement should be heavily supported.  And controlled to prevent bells and whistles to satisfy this or that Congressman’s (or lobbyist’s) pet wish from being added, cluttering the reform to the point of prevention.  The more we as individuals save for our own futures (and by extension, the futures of our families), the less dependent we’ll be on a failing social “safety” net of Social Security and Medicare.  And the more we’ll be exercising our own responsibilities instead of relying on others.

Finally, as long as we’re modifying our retirement plans, of large importance to me is the removal of existing limits to contributions on IRAs, Roth IRAs, HSAs, and 401(k)s—both traditional and Roth.  Let us put by as much as we want without Government limits.

Rights

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Some people have more of them, others have fewer.  That’s the position of the People’s Republic of China.

The Hong Kong National Party is being threatened by the PRC government, through its Hong Kong Secretary for Security, John Lee Ka-chiu, with being banned.  The heinous crime of which the party (and its leader, Andy Chan) is speaking too freely in favor of freedom for Hong Kong.

Or, as another man put it a while back, some people are just more equal than others.

Media Bias

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We’ve seen how Facebook openly favors liberal news outlets; now we can see the unconscious bias against conservative outlets that media moguls have.

Facebook at least has started paying lip service to (and may actually be serious about) correcting its own bias.  The company held an allegedly off-the-record meeting with a dozen or so publishing executives (allegedly because of the leaks of the meeting’s contents by participants).  BuzzFeed‘s Editor in Chief Ben Smith, though, objected to the presence of “six conservative-leaning publications among the dozen or so outlets” present.  Apparently, actual balance between conservatives and liberals is biased representation.

Mr Smith said that the number of conservative publications in attendance indicated that Facebook had bought into the idea, promoted primarily by conservatives, that mainstream outlets such as the New York Times are liberal and should be counterbalanced by right-leaning opinion outlets, said people familiar with his remarks.

As if the NYT is a bastion of conservatism and needs no counterbalance.  Or, as if liberalism itself needs no counterbalance.

Then he attacked the journalistic standards of The Daily Caller, a conservative outlet that was represented at the meeting.  Lacking coherent argument, the liberal Smith stooped to character assassination, this time of a competitor.  He’s not alone in the character assassination; Lydia Polgreen, HuffPost Editor in Chief, in a canonical example of a pot complaining about a kettle, echoed Smith’s plaint.

It’s bad enough that the NLMSM is biased.  It’s bordering on dangerous when the NLMSM can no longer discriminate bias from balance.

Misunderstood

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A 13-year-old Huntsville girl was beheaded after she witnessed her grandmother assaulted with a knife and left to die on the ground in a cemetery, court testimony revealed.

A child.

The butchers were members of the Sinaloa cartel; apparently, they were disgruntled with the grandmother’s handling of a drug delivery.  It’s also…interesting…that the thugs chose to take the child along with the grandmother to the site where murder occurred, supposedly just to remonstrate with her before “[t]he argument escalated.”

These are the beasts that the Progressive-Democrats insist are not animals, just misunderstood yout’s.

An Award, or Two

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Recall Congressman Steve Cohen’s (D, TN) performance during last week’s House hearings with Peter Strzok, during which Cohen said Strzok deserved a Purple Heart for the questions he was being asked.  This, of course, is outrageous, deprecating as it does the decoration for servicemen who are wounded or killed in combat defending the right of guys like Cohen to be stupidly insulting.

As Sean Higgins, an Air Force veteran, put it,

How do you compare someone getting wounded in combat to someone getting in trouble for message he sent?

Indeed.

Cohen, on hearing the outrage (and not before) expressed regret for his comparison.

I regret mentioning the Purple Heart medal at yesterday’s hearing. My intent was to speak metaphorically to make a broader point about attacks against the FBI and Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation into a Russian attack on our country[.]

This is nonsense.  Cohen is an experienced politician; words are his stock in trade.  He knew exactly what he was “mentioning;” it plainly was a carefully planned slur against his Republican colleagues.  Were he regretful, he would have walked back his comment before the risk of political damage from it arose.

On the other hand, both Strzok and Cohen do deserve awards.  Strzok should get an Oscar for his performance as Starring Witness with his carefully staged outrage over his being called—gently—to answer for his shameful behavior as an FBI agent pretending to investigate Hillary Clinton’s (D) email escapades and Trump-Russia collusion.

Cohen deserves an Oscar for Best Supporting Politician for his staged “outrage” over the questioning of Strzok.

Voters should remember Cohen’s acting this fall.