Savings Rates in America

I read a snippet by Laura Rowley in Yahoo Finance this morning bemoaning the savings rates in the US. The article states that:

While three-quarters of Americans report that they save something, half put away only 5 percent or less of their income. Forty-three percent say they aren't saving enough to maintain a desirable living standard in retirement.

My thought was that 50% socking away less than 5% was not a bad thing. I considered the 13% (6.5% each from employee and employer) enforced "savings" of social security and this looks pretty good. Unfortunately social security payments cant really be considered savings since you have no control over the money once it is extracted from your paycheck. Indeed, a good portion of the working populace is being told today to not expect anything out of social security. If savings is such a boon and a desirable trait, allowing workers to opt out of social security would be a great place to start.

Movie Review: Seoul Train

I streamed a documentary from Netflix the other night: Seoul Train. The movie was a very low budget documentary discussing the plight of North Korean refugees in China. Part of me wishes that the movie had better production quality and a more coherent thesis, but nonetheless, it is an eye opening movie. While the movie fails to provide any suggested path for resolution, it does a pretty good job of saying "Life sucks if you are a North Korean in China." Indeed life pretty much sucks for all North Koreans. What I didn't like was the constant bloviating politician interviews that peppered the short film. How many politicians do you have to see a)talking about how we need to do something b) pass the buck c) talk around a problem. I don't particularly want to see these guys get involved any more than they have too. For politicians of these countries (yes you Sam Brownback) that wish to do something about these human rights issues, why not let it be known to the underground railroad in question that you will assist them in entering the embassy or consulate nearest them and that you will grant asylum or allow for expatriation to South Korea upon request.

It is terrible that we (China, the US, South Korea, et. al.) pretend that these people are merely economic migrants merely to avoid making Kim Jong Il mad. We don't need to have our government solve the problem, but we can certainly expect that our governments not aid the bad guy in this (Kim Jong Il). The movie recommends doing the usual tripe of "writing your congressman" or "writing to the UN". Really, I think the members of the underground railroad and their benefactors are doing much more than this by acting directly instead of hoping for government to solve their problems.

The movie is less than and hour and available to stream from Netflix. I notice that it is showing on TMC in March as well. You will see many better documentaries technically, but there are not a lot of documentaries on this subject. Check it out and broaden your horizons. If you know of other documentaries on the subject, drop a comment.

Introductions

Introductions--Postings on this blog will be sporadic and hopefully a way to keep updates on what's going on in my world. Expect rambling diatribes against idiocy, comments on good food, funny stories and stuff that strikes me as interesting. Comments welcome for now, but not guaranteed to be monitored or reviewed with any frequency.