Personal Finance Blog by Debit versus Credit

Please, Do Your Own Research

July 29, 2008 | Filed in: Miscellaneous | 1 comment

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I have friends who are completely anti-Obama.  I’m OK with that.  What I’m not ok with is when people make up their minds about things that they heard somewhere without ever bothering to find out themselves if it’s true or not.  A little disclaimer: I’m leaning more towards Obama at this point.  My mind is not made up yet, however, and will not be until probably a week before elections.  I like to keep an open mind about things and I don’t know everything about either of the candidates campaigns yet.  What I do know about them is that from what I’ve read and researched myself I prefer Barack Obama.  He seems to be a better match than John McCain for our country and its’ needs.  Like I said, this could change.  I don’t agree with everything he’s preaching, but I agree with a majority of it.  I think that’s the proper way to choose who to vote for, right?  Who cares if the candidate is male, female, black, white, Cuban, Asian, Mexican or Puerto Rican.  The point is that he or she is trying to do whats best for our country and that you agree with them.

I have two purposes for this post.  First of all I want to get across my point that an uninformed decision is a bad decision.  Period.  Secondly (and relating to the first point) I want everyone to know about an untruth which has been going around about the Obama campaign.  The reason for this?  It’s a pretty important topic and I absolutely can’t stand all of the hate going around.  It all goes back to my first point, of course.  Do your own research before making up your mind.

So What If Your Girlfriend Is An Obama Hater

Here’s a quiz for you.  Let’s say your significant other doesn’t like a certain presidential candidate and they feed you all of this information about him/her.  Do you a) agree with your significant other or b) research it and make up your own mind.  If you answered with “b” then good for you.  If you answered “a” then please reconsider option “b.”  Make sure that before you ever make any decisions that you always research and make up your own mind.  This is one of the primary lessons that I’d like everyone to pick up on here at Debit versus Credit.  This can be applied to every aspect of life, whether politics, finance or even your job.

Let Me Refute A Falsehood About Obama

I keep seeing information go around about how Obama is going to make everyones life miserable by raising taxes.  This is a half-truth.  Taxes will most likely increase under Obama’s leadership, this is true.  However to blatantly spread lies about how even the poorest in the U.S. will have to take on a larger tax burden is completely unaccurate.  I’d like to correct this misconception, so that people might be able to make a clearer decision.  Obama will only be raising taxes for couples making more than $250,000 in taxable income and for single filers making more than $200,000 in taxable income.  Income tax brackets will not change other than for these numbers.  That leaves a huge majority of U.S. citizens right where they currently are with taxes.  In fact they might even pay less taxes because Obama wants to introduce more tax credits for lower and middle class Americans.

Please don’t take my word for it.  Also don’t think I’m trying to convince you that you MUST vote for Obama.  Vote for whoever you feel most strongly for, but only after doing the research.  Good decisions probably shouldn’t come that easy.  Click Here if you would like to read more about what both McCain and Obama plan to do with taxes.

Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, Politics, Rants

Revitalize Economy? Spend Says Obama

June 16, 2008 | Filed in: Miscellaneous | No comment

I was reading the financial news today at CNN Money when I ran across an article highlighting presidential candidate Barack Obama’s plan for revitalizing the shrinking U.S. economy.  He says that he wants to spend billions of dollars on education, infrastructure, health and energy systems.  Specifically (and this is to improve America’s competitiveness according to the article) he wants to spend “$10 billion on childhood education, $150 billion over 10 years developing alternative energy and $60 billion over 10 years to build 21st-century infrastructure.  Where will the money come from to fund these spending plans?  By ending the war in Iraq, reducing government waste, charging polluters for greenhouse gas emissions and ending the Bush tax cuts, but only for wealthy individuals.

Not A Bad Idea, But Will It Really Work?

Honestly I’m all for increasing spending where it’s important for the future of the country, and more importantly the future of the world.  Education is a great place to spend money on (efficiently of course) and I’m definitely all for developing alternative energy.  Overall the places which Mr. Obama has outlined as important to spending I agree with.  However I’m not so sure how realistic it is to assume that the money to fund these plans will actually come.  The war in Iraq is probably likely to end if Obama is elected (at least if he does what he is saying he will), but what does it really mean when someone says that they want to reduce government waste?  Or charge polluters for greenhouse gas emissions?  These are quite vague.  I drive my car to work which means I emit greenhouse gases.  Does that mean I’ll be taxed for these pollutions?  Any ideas out there?

Globalization Is Inevitable

Another interesting part of this article was Barack Obama’s response when asked about protectionist trade policies designed to protect American jobs.  He said, “it is impossible to turn back the tide of globalization.”  Good man.  I’m glad that someone in Washington is smart enough to at least realize the truth of this matter.  We’re going global, whether we like it or not.  If we prepare for it and stay competitive then we’ll survive in a global market.  If we don’t and instead whine and complain and fight for protectionist trade policies and increased tariffs, etc. we’ll crash and burn as a global economic superpower.  I’m actually a fan of his policies regarding this.  I’m glad that he’s realized that we need to change and adapt, if we want to stay competitive.  Now if we could only convince everyone else…

Tags: Barack Obama, Globalization