13 thoughts on “Palin Debate Flow Chart”

  1. How about a charity flow chart? from Mark Perry: “Even though the Palins ($294,000) earned only about half the income of the Bidens ($569,000) in 2006 and 2007 combined, the Palins gave almost 6 times as much to charity ($8,205) in those two years as the Bidens ($1,375).”

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  2. “I’m amazed that Palin kept winking at me during the debate.”
    Just be careful when making assumptions about people on winking TV. Rachel Weisz’s lawyers still won’t leave me alone.

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  3. I read somewhere that the poorer people are, the greater the proportion of their income is devoted to charity (and this was for the UK, as well, where giving to charity is givng to charity, not to churches, schools, etc). So, good to know the Bidens and Palins fit that stereotype. Pity that it has no bearing on one’s suitability for office.

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  4. The NYT kinda dissed that Palin charity thing. They said that she has a $1 million in assets and that her charitable contributions were mostly like giving the Salvation Army their old clothes. She also didn’t have receipts for anything. She may have also given a big chunk of money to that church that she belongs to.
    MH. Well, I’m quite certain that Brad Pitt is embedding coded messages for me during his TV interviews.

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  5. The Bidens’ finances continue to puzzle me. With the sort of income he’s had for the past thirty some years (and the occasional sweet real estate deal with a bank executive), how does he manage to be the poor man of the Senate? Short of literally burning the money, how do you make it all disappear like that? I was wondering earlier if the Bidens were just freakishly charitable, but that hasn’t panned out. My current theory is either heavy family expenses (college, medical, etc.) or poor personal finance decisions, but I’m waiting for more data to come in.

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  6. Well, they’re paying $30K plus per year in mortgage interest. That’s more than twice what I’m paying, and I’m in the third year of my mortgage. So their monthly payment is likely to be pretty high, no?
    So my guess is that their income is going to pay their mortgage. They probably also have car payments (which we don’t have) and other travel expenses. A Blackberry or two and monthly costs for good phone/data plans. Presents for the grandkids. Helping to pay for some of his mother-in-law’s expenses.

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  7. In case anyone hadn’t heard Biden’s mother-in-law just died. She was under hospice care, and they informed the family yesterday or the day before that it was the final days. I remember that day with my MIL, when I found out she was in the final days.
    Anyway, really, my point is that I wonder if the Bidens faced the same kind of financial issues with caring for a sick relative the way we did with my MIL and we do now with my father. So much that insurance refuses to pay for. My dad can’t walk, but hey, why should they pay for physical therapy? I guess they figure he’s terminal anyway. Or they think he won’t be able to learn to walk before the cancer gets him.
    Hospice was great, but even then, there were expenses. Hospice assumes a family member can do daily care; in our case, my FIl couldn’t, and the rest of her family lived out of town. We hired a home health care aide on our dime. I’d hire one right now for my dad if he’d accept it.
    Anyway, Jill Biden’s mother’s death makes me wonder if that’s where the Biden money has been going.

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  8. Don’t forget all those Amtrak tickets from DC to Delaware. The yearly cost is supposed to be astronomical.
    This may seem really nosy, but I’m starting to think that personal finance and money management skill is really important, and that we’ve been barking up the wrong tree for some time in this area. Current practice is simply to critique the candidates for being wealthy or having wealthy spouses (Kerry, McCain, Romney, etc.), because it is an easy gotcha. The position I’m moving toward is that (given that we are planning to entrust them with a multi-trillion dollar concern) we need to pay attention to how good candidates are with money (both theirs and other people’s). So it’s fair to ask how George W. Bush did with his businesses, whether Obama has gotten half a billion dollar’s worth of campaign from his half a billion dollars, and to ask Sarah Palin to describe what she has done with her family’s finances over the years. I think we need to be way more nosy about this stuff.

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  9. Laura — I was just about to send this to you.
    …she was winking at you because she thought that you were hot.

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  10. Laura — I was just about to send this to you.
    …she was winking at you because she thought that you were hot.

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  12. Well, dave s., it probably is easier to give a few thosuand dollars away when one is cheating on their taxes.
    Have you read about how the Palin’s did not declare their $43,000 in travel expenses as income? Also, they claim her hubby’s snowmobiling hobby as a business. The took $9,000 in “business” losses for his hobby. So before you get high and mighty about charitables–and I gather their charitables were also sketchy–let’s ask who is paying what they owe!

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  13. But, in Wasilla, it’s not patriotic to pay your taxes. So, I think that the Palins were just trying to be patriotic.
    “You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that’s not patriotic.”

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