Wednesday, March 22, 2006

I Am Officially an Old Fart - hee hee

As of today the U.S. Government is looking at me as an official old person. The Social Security office sent me a brochure that is titled “WELCOME TO MEDICARE” that I received today. I’ll be age 65 in July.

Now I can use expressions such as “By Cracky!” and “Yee Doggies!”

They also enclosed a form for me to elect just what sort of service I want from them. And I think, there is an urgency…. In small print someplace I’m sure there is a finger snapping (text-wise) that is telling to make it snappy, so they can get on it with it, or a dead-line (no pun intended).

Which reminds me of an article I read in the New York Times on-line Sunday:

Because of so many large corporations are reneging on their agreement to the payment of benefits to their retirees lawmakers were called in to see about writing up stronger laws to protect the benefits of the retirees.

That sounds great doesn’t it? Who says the lawmakers are for big business? That is what I like to see, the lawmakers making laws to protect the little man from big business.

Well, it didn’t exactly work as planned. The lobbyists of big businesses also got to get in on the decision making. After it was all said and done the retiree now has less than he/she had before.

The Republican representative who worked hard on the bill said now companies can be more competitive.

I don’t remember in the article if he said it or not, but to him, I would not be surprised if he felt the outcome was a “win – win” situation.

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