BILLIONAIRE GIVEAWAY CLUB

I'm watching 60 Minutes which is one of my favorite television programs. Tonight, they had a segment on a unique "billionaires" club in which to become a member, you have to pledge to give away at least half of your wealth in your lifetime. You have to be worth at least 1 billion dollars in order to join. Some of the  distinguished members include Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet, the first CEO of eBay (forgot his name. Sorry) among many others. They are free to give to any charity or purpose that they see fit. Some of these so called "charities" are very political in nature such as environmental issues, medical issues, political issues, etc. Is this really " charity" or undo influence?

Is "Black Friday" Really A Day For Deals, Or Sleep Deprivation?

I've checked out the ads posted so far for the "Black Friday" deals that most of the major stores are offering. Sorry, but I really don't see anything surprising or any significant deals that will get me out of bed at midnight with enough time to stand in line at JC Penny by 3:00am. Especially when it comes to high tech items. Couple of bucks here, and a couple of bucks there, isn't worth it. For example, at Best Buy Electronics, they have a ASUS 15-inch touchscreen laptop with Windows 8 and 32GB memory for $249. I guess, for the brand, this could be just okay. But, the point is, I've seen these deals all the time. You can get the same deal at Big Lots all year round. I've also seen other great electronics deals at eBay, Amazon.com, and other smaller electronic "brick and mortar" stores. I guess the Kindle Fire that's listed for $99 might sound like a "good deal". But how many of the Kindle Fire's will be in stock? Example: About 6 years ago when portable DVD players were popular (remember those days before the popularity of Netflix, iTunes, Youtube, and Hulu) I went to Best Buy Electronics very early the Friday after Thanksgiving in order to snare a Sony brand portable DVD player that was listed at the "Black Friday" price which was $25. Well, these "players" were normally listed at $149. Seems like a good price, right? I mean, this was a really, really, good price! I busted into the doors of Best Buy with all the other people, ran to the DVD department and was told by the sales clerk that they have been sold out! What!!! "You guys just opened!!" The sales clerk went on to explain to me that they only had 10 of them in stock, and they probably were already snatched up and purchased by employees stocking shelves the day before. But he went on to tell me that I might be interested in these DVD players over here...which by the way, were at a significantly higher price. I guess, anything to get you into the store, right? The old "bate and switch". Also, I had seen an ad for a $159 Garmin GPS system for my car at Sears. The item was on sale for $49.99. Before I went home that morning, I decided to stop into Sears and try my luck. I did see the Garmin! I snatched it off the rack, but boy, oh boy, when I saw that line to the cashiers, I promptly put the Garmin back. That line must have been at least 200 people thick.

I went home very discouraged (and sleepy). I decided (after having another piece of pumpkin pie)to get on my computer that afternoon and visit the Sears website and joy of all joys there was the Garmin listed online at Sears.com for the same $49.99 sales price. They even had free shipping! And, yes, I was willing to wait the extra 2-3 days to receive the item. That was my last "Black Friday" that I got up early for. After that, every Friday after Thanksgiving, I look for all deals online (I didn't even have to wait for "Cyber Monday"). And the good thing about that is that I can do it in my pajamas.

I've been invited several times by good friends and relatives to attend "Black Fridays" with them. "Not on your life" I tell them. They quickly inform me that it's not the shopping that's important, but its the tradition of getting up early, driving to the mall in the cold, and "hunting" for good deals. It's all in the "hunt". I still say "No thank you". It could be "old age" (even though I'm not really old), but to me this is torture.

Through the years, many stores have been opening earlier, and earlier for "Black Friday". Many had began to open there doors by 8:00pm on Thanksgiving night. Now, there are a stores that have now announced that that will be opening all day on Thanksgiving starting at 8:00am!! Oh, those poor employees. How will they spend Thanksgiving with their families? I say we all stand by those employees and send a message to the greedy store execs...Let's all shop online this year!

Need To Know: Affordable Health Care Summary For Those of Us Still Confused!

For those of us who are still very confused about the Affordable Health Care Act or "Obama Care" as it is "affectionately" (or not) known by some people. Here is a link to a site that gives us a "layman's" summary and explanation as to what this is all about http://www.dpc.senate.gov/healthreformbill/healthbill04.pdf . If the link doesn't work, You can cut, or copy and paste this address in your browser. Yes, it will effect your 2014 Income Tax if you don't have health insurance. But for some people, the penalty for not having medical insurance or "adequate" medical insurance might be an option. Of course we all know that the system it which we're to apply for the Affordable Health Care Act or "Obama Care" is completely "messed up". What the government should have done is have each state be responsible for signing up it's own residents and then having a system that would allow those states to upload the applicants to the Federal government database. That way the computers on the Federal governments "side" wouldn't have been so overloaded. I think the those little kids on the AT&T commercials could have figured that out...