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5 Steps to a Rich-Enough Retirement


By Comcast Finance
For What it’s Worth

Editor’s Note: This post by Jennie L. Phipps originally appeared on September 23 on WalletPop.com.

If you drive a car without knowing where you want to go, who knows where you’ll end up? The same thing applies to retirement. If you head out into the unexplored wilderness of later life with no plan, chances are you’ll find yourself in a place where you don’t want to be.

Money magazine offers 7 Steps to a Richer Retirement. It’s a little long, but if you’ve got lots of time, read it. If your schedule’s tight, take a quick look at these 5 Steps to a Rich-Enough Retirement, gleaned from folks who have good retirement road maps and concise advice.

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• 25 Best Places to Retire
• Worst States to Retire
• Women Fall Short in Retirement

Step 1: Find something you love to do. 88-year-old Mort Walker, who has been creating the cartoon strip Beetle Bailey for the last 60 years, says cartooning is his passion and he has no reason to quit. Beetle can be read in 1,800 newspapers worldwide. Walker and three other people meet once a month to come up with ideas for the perpetual army private and his boss Sarge, then Walker takes the 30 best ideas, polishes them and turns them into cartoons. “You have to keep being creative,” he says. “How could I retire and stop giving people their daily cartoon fix?”

Step 2: Have a solid financial blueprint. Lee Eisenberg, former editor-in-chief of Esquire, and author of The Number, a best-selling book about retirement, says when it comes to figuring out a retirement financial plan, too many Baby Boomers suffer from “IDD – “inspiration deficit disorder.” So they are headed into retirement with no plan. “Unless they really want to spend the last days of their lives in government-run nursing homes, they should get off the dime and put some kind of plan in place,” he says

Step 3: Don’t quit earning money early. It costs too much. 114-year-old Walter Breuning of Great Falls, Mont., was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest living man on his birthday, Sept. 21. Breuning’s advice on retirement: “Stay working as long as you can and don’t retire too early because you’ll find out you need a little more money than what Social Security pays.”

Step 4: Stay healthy. Exercise guru Jack LaLanne, who will turn 96 on Sept. 26, has this to say about retirement: “When you slow down too much, you come to a stop. So many older people, they just sit around all day long and they don’t get any exercise. Their muscles atrophy, and they lose their strength, their energy and vitality by inactivity.”

Step 5: Have a good fallback plan. As 58-year-old country singer George Strait croons, “If you’re headed down a one-way street and you’re not sure it’s the way you wanna go; In money or love or all the above … you’ve got to have an ace in the hole.”

Do you have any retirement tips? Share them here.

WalletPop.com is one of the leading consumer finance sites on the Web. Find the latest deals, bargains, consumer protection and personal finance information quickly. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Comcast.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

a message from Mitch Stewart


The path this country takes after November 2nd will be determined by what we do over the next 22 days.

That’s the message the President is delivering on the stump across the country, but he’ll be the first to tell you: he needs you at his side.

We want to thank and recognize the people who are driving this grassroots campaign — organizing house meetings, talking to voters, and funding this effort one small donation at a time.

The extreme candidates on the other side aren’t just intent on bringing our progress to a halt, they want to take us backward, well beyond the failed policies of the last administration.

They envision an America where Social Security is privatized and left to the whims of the market. They picture an America where education programs get cut to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and corporations. And they look forward to an America where the insurance companies once again have the right to deny coverage to anyone they want.

This election is about choosing the direction this country takes.

On one side is the millions from undisclosed donors attacking our candidates. On the other is us. And each and every one of us who is committed to this struggle for change has a role to play.

That’s why we all need to be knocking on doors, making phone calls, and spreading the word from here through Election Day. The President is doing all he can, and he’s counting on all of us to take that next step today.
https://donate.barackobama.com/Backstage

Thanks,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Job Tracker …


 

 

Search Working America’s Job Tracker to find corporate traitors in your area.

Every day, more U.S. workers are told “You’re fired!” Not because they did something wrong—and not because the work they do isn’t needed anymore—but because their jobs are being shipped overseas.

So our friends at the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate Working America created Job Tracker—a website that exposes which companies are guilty of outsourcing our jobs. Just enter your ZIP code, and Job Tracker will find corporate traitors near you.

Search your area for companies that have sent jobs overseas, risked the safety and health of workers or violated their rights.

When we see the plant near us closing or mass layoffs in the next town over, it’s hard to know the disturbing scope of the problem—after all, corporations don’t want to publicize unpopular, anti-worker actions, and the government doesn’t track every job lost to outsourcing in one easily assessable place.

I was shocked to learn from Job Tracker that 13 companies right in my area are outsourcing jobs, and a shocking 6,515 companies have safety and health violations! Want to know what things are like in your community? Get the stats on greedy companies near you, and report any missing companies you know about.

By making this information public, Working America is putting greedy CEOs on the defensive. For the first time, working people have one place to see the real impact of outsourcing, bad trade deals and currency manipulation. Every corporate traitor Working America exposes—and every company you and your friends, co-workers and family add—makes a stronger case for holding corporations accountable.

So check out Job Tracker, and if any companies are missing, tell us about them. We’ll research your submissions and add them to the site when we verify the information.

In solidarity,

Manny Herrmann
Online Mobilization Coordinator, AFL-CIO

P.S. Corporations aren’t going to stop moving jobs out of America unless we force them to stop. That starts with compiling concrete information on just how much corporate greed is costing America’s workers. Check out Job Tracker, and help us take the first step by shining a light on outsourcing, safety and health violations and labor law violations.
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Washington Democrats are Counting on YOU


Democrats 2010

I know you are getting tons of emails. The truth is November’s election is in a little over three weeks and it all comes down to the actions we take right now to get out our message and turn out Democrats to the polls.

The margins of victory have no room for error for any Democrat to sit on the sidelines. If you care about the progress we have made for America, we must act now. Here are the three best ways you can get involved to help retain our Democratic Majority in November:

  • Sign up to Volunteer — We can put you in touch with a local campaign in your area who needs your help now, on the phones, knocking on doors and passing out literature. We urgently need volunteers on the ground. We know exactly which voters we need to target. We just need folks to make it happen.
  • Ask your friends to Volunteer — Post a link on Facebook, tweet it out, or simply press forward on this email and send to ten friends. Every committed Democrat needs to get involved and we are counting on you. The Republicans are counting on Obama Democrats to stay home — let’s prove them wrong.
  • Can’t volunteer? Donate! — Outfitting a grassroots campaign organizer with a kit costs $28 dollars – contribute that today and it could mean that one more campaign has one more volunteer who has the resources it will take for victory on Election Day. $100 could cover production of over a 1000 door hangers. We urgently need your support.

It’s all come down to these final three weeks.

We cannot wake up on November 3rd regretting we didn’t do more. I need you in this game. Stand with Speaker Pelosi and President Obama and let’s prove the Republicans wrong. They have underestimated us before but let’s show them this is their biggest miscalculation of all.

Onward to Victory,

Jon Vogel
DCCC Executive Director

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Washington State: Meet Dino Rossi …updated


Running for U.S. Senate, Washington

Dino Rossi is a Republican candidate in the primary for the U.S. Senate in Washington.  He is real estate investor who previously served as a state senator and twice ran for governor of Washington.

In the 1990s, Sen. Rossi developed a relationship with one of Seattle’s biggest real estate developers, Michael Mastro.  In 1997, when Sen. Rossi was serving in the state Senate, he purchased a building from Mr. Mastro.  Two of Sen. Rossi’s fellow investors were Washington state lobbyists, David Ducharme and his father, Richard Ducharme.  Mr. Mastro loaned the threesome $2 million to purchase the $2.5 million property.  Separately, Sen. Rossi borrowed $50,000 from Mr. Mastro for the purchase, which he did not report as required on his financial disclosure forms.  Mr. Mastro was also a donor to both of Sen. Rossi’s campaigns for governor.  In 2008, Mr. Mastro’s multimillion dollar empire crumbled after it became apparent he had been promising untenable returns to investors.

listen as Rossi dodges questions about unemployment 2010

Sen. Rossi’s relationship with the Ducharmes continued long after they sold the building they had purchased from Mr. Mastro.  While still a state senator, Sen. Rossi turned to the pair once again and convinced them to invest in a bank that he had started.  Sen. Rossi invested at least $75,000 of his own money in the bank and made David Ducharme CEO.  In 2009, the bank came under investigation for “engage[ing] in unsafe and unsound banking practices relating to its strategic and capital planning, credit underwriting, credit administration, concentration risk management, and liquidity management.”  David Ducharme is currently working to secure enough capital to appease federal regulators.

Following his defeat in the 2004 gubernatorial race, Sen. Rossi started the Forward Washington Foundation. Sen. Rossi used the foundation to pay himself $75,000 a year while traveling the state giving speeches but little else.  Sen. Rossi treated the foundation much like his own campaign committee, but he didn’t have to abide by campaign contribution limits or disclosure laws.  The Public Disclosure Commission (PDC)  opened an investigation into the foundation but Sen. Rossi stepped down as president before the investigation was complete and declared his candidacy for governor. The Commission later ended its investigation because of insufficient evidence.

In his run for governor in 2008, Sen. Rossi was supported by the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW).  The BIAW spent $6.9 million largely to promote Sen. Rossi and criticize his opponent throughout the race. A complaint filed with PDC alleged that Sen. Rossi violated state law by coordinating fundraising with the BIAW, failing to register as a candidate in a timely manner, exceeding contribution limits and failing to disclose contributions. After an investigation, the PDC eventually cleared Sen. Rossi of any wrongdoing, but its final report revealed how closely the BIAW skirted the law in promoting his candidacy. Sen. Rossi’s close relationship to the BIAW shouldn’t have come as any surprise, though; Richard Ducharme is a former lobbyist for the BIAW.

Source: CREW

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Dino Rossi running for US Senate and questions as well

below is a vid from 2008 about abortion

Watch dino Rossi questions on 9/21/10