The Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio
Brian Gongol


Yet another Presidential debate...and yet again, no one talked about fixing the Medicare funding crisis. Either they're going to have to raise taxes or cut benefits -- perhaps even both -- but doing nothing isn't an option.

Don't forget about the mayoral and city council elections on Tuesday. I tried to document a handful of the candidate lists with links to their websites.

Have you ever really taken a look at the Federal budget? A couple of things stand out, even from a very quick glance: First, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost a whole lot of money -- about $100 billion a year. Second, even if we stopped spending that money tomorrow, we wouldn't solve the budgetary crisis in Medicare, nor would we be able to cover the costs of so many new proposals being thrown out by Presidential candidates. In fact, the Federal government is still spending so much more than it's bringing in that we should only be talking about cuts, not new spending.

Bill Gates isn't the richest person in the world anymore. That job has been "outsourced" to India, at least for the time being.

The CEO of Citigroup is stepping down after the company announced losses of about $17 billion on bad loans. But don't feel sorry for him: He's leaving with at least $94 million in stock. Like others, I've become convinced that executive pay, at least in some circles, is completely out of control -- but also that there's no reasonable government solution. The real answer is for people to exercise their power as shareholders -- that is, as owners -- to make executive pay reflect reality. When a CEO manages a company straight into a $17 billion loss and then walks away with enough money to buy two Boeing 737s, something's out of control.

Score one for creative destruction: Google is now a bigger player in the UK's advertising market than the biggest commercial TV network there.

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