Archive for the ‘ProvidentLiving’ Category
Inflation
Saturday, March 21st, 2009Butt-scratching and Bass Fishing
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008Dave Ramsey recently posted a rant / essay on the politics of envy:
I have seen several elitist people on the talking-head channels make the statement lately that people making over $250,000 per year have a “moral imperative” to pay more in taxes to take care of the country’s problems. This is not only infuriating—it is economically, spiritually, and morally crazy!
Where in the world do these twits get off saying that Henry should be punished for his diligence? If you are John, where do you get off trying to take Henry’s hard-earned money away from him in the name of your misguided “fairness”? If you want to sit on the lake, drink beer, scratch your butt, and bass fish, that is perfectly fine with me. I am not against any of those activities and have engaged in some of them myself at one time or another. But you HAVE NO RIGHT to talk about “moral imperatives” about what other people have earned due to their diligence. That money is not yours! You want some money? Go earn some! Get up, leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home.
We are in a dangerous place in our country today. A segment of our population has decided that it is the government’s job to provide all of their protection, provision, and prosperity. This segment has figured out that government doesn’t have the money to give them everything they want, so somebody else has to pay for it. That is how the “politics of envy” was born. “Tax the rich” has become the mantra of the left, and this political season it has been falsely dubbed a “moral imperative.”
I highly recommend the the full article.
Fairness, Idealism, and Other Atrocities
Monday, May 12th, 2008A great opinion piece from P.J. O’Rourke: Fairness, Idealism, and Other Atrocities. A few of my favorite bits below.
On fairness:
Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I’ve got a 10-year-old at home. She’s always saying, “That’s not fair.” When she says this, I say, “Honey, you’re cute. That’s not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That’s not fair. You were born in America. That’s not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don’t start getting fair for you.” What we need is more income, even if it means a bigger income disparity gap.
On idealism:
Don’t chain yourself to a redwood tree. Instead, be a corporate lawyer and make $500,000 a year. No matter how much you cheat the IRS, you’ll still end up paying $100,000 in property, sales and excise taxes. That’s $100,000 to schools, sewers, roads, firefighters and police. You’ll be doing good for society. Does chaining yourself to a redwood tree do society $100,000 worth of good? Idealists are also bullies. The idealist says, “I care more about the redwood trees than you do. I care so much I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. It broke up my marriage. And because I care more than you do, I’m a better person. And because I’m the better person, I have the right to boss you around.”
What it really comes down to is this: go out and do something, make something, create value. That’s where real power and influence come from. If you want the people with power and influence to be aligned with the values you support, then make yourself one of those people.
Opt out of pre-approved credit offers
Tuesday, January 16th, 2007http://optoutprescreen.com/ is a service run by the credit bureaus to allow you to opt-out of receiving any pre-screened / pre-approved credit and insurance offers. Takes about 30secs to opt-out electronically… hopefully it will reduce the amount of junk mail I receive.
My 2007 goals
Thursday, January 4th, 2007I agree with others that it is silly to create grandiose goals to start the new year — only to forget them within a week. I’m not planning to set any new goals, really, just write down some of the things I’m actively working towards, and elicit feedback and support from others to help me achieve them. So here goes…
Get under 175 and stay there – I’m generally active a reasonably healthy, but losing a couple pounds would be great. I don’t have the time and energy to commit to really shaping my body… this goal simply means that I need to be more disciplined, mainly cutting out the junk and exercising a bit more regularly. I expect to hit 175 by the end of March.
Go to bed by midnight at least 3 days a week – This is a major issue and a discipline I need to develop. Getting more sleep, and more consistently, will have many positive ripple effects in other areas.
Never use credit cards again – Mostly we keep credit cards for emergencies, and pay the balances quickly. But really it’s a crutch to keep from having to be more disciplined and plan better. I’ve been reading and listening to stuff from Dave Ramsey, and he’s helped me realize my dependence on them and that it has to stop. I strongly encourage you to follow his advice (which certainly isn’t anything new).
Establish a 6-month emergency fund – Another of Dave’s baby steps (also not unique to him). It’s tricky to balance all the competing needs for financial resources, but this is something that has to be done first. Our landscaping and other plans will just have to wait a while longer.
Earn revenue from my genealogy business – I’ve been working on some web-based genealogy service stuff with some partners for about a year now… mostly we’ve just been learning and prototyping, and not moving very fast at all. This year I plan to move that far enough along that it generates actual revenue – anything more than zero counts! I see the potential as being much greater than that (or else why would I do it?) but, realistically, everything else that takes my time and energy is not going to go away.
Get out of the house with my wife at least twice a month – Two days until our 11th anniversary, and I certainly have a lot more to learn about dating her. It doesn’t have to be anything lavish, but it does have to be just the two of us.
Ski and golf with my boys – I’m looking forward to lots of fun activities with my boys as they get older. It will be a while before we all are able to do these things together as a family, but I’ll do what I can for now. As Kim’s grandfather Brig says, “All I hope for this year is to make more money and play more golf.”
Use technology to benefit my extended family – uh, that doesn’t count as a goal, but I’ll let it slide – I’m kind of the nerd of the family, and that’s okay. I know a lot about the internet and such that can benefit my family. This past year I got my mother blogging. This year I need to finish up on the Lofgreen Newsletter project I started a couple years ago. Then there’s teaching about things like RSS, avoiding viruses, phishing and other attacks, filtering bad content, etc. There’s no way I can keep up on all of it myself, but I’m happy to consult and help any who ask.
Looks like 2007 will be as busy as ever. Hopefully writing these down and sharing them publicly will help to yield positive results. I’m looking forward to it.
Attack of the giant killer tomato plants
Tuesday, September 12th, 2006
15′ tall tomato plants that look like trees:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7471798897454225511
I know Frank from playing ultimate at Greer Park when I was attending Stanford. Never knew about his tomatoes…
There’s also a newspaper article about his garden that has some good tips.
www.daveramsey.com
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006I listened to one of Dave Ramsey’s online shows, and I enjoyed it. Nothing new or earth-shattering so far, but it is good to have reinforcement for the principles I already believe in. It’s good to have something worthwhile to listen to while I work.
Credit report
Friday, August 11th, 2006Based on the suggestion from Ramit Sethi’s blog, I decided to go to http://www.annualcreditreport.com to check my credit report. This site allows you to go to each of the 3 credit reporting agencies. Thankfully, the one I went to first was Equifax, which turned out to be the easiest to use and most complete report by far. If I had gone to either the TransUnion or Experian sites first, I would have given up. They just made it too hard to get into (account creation, verifying my personal data).
I did also pay the $7.95 fee to get my credit score — credit report (details of open accounts, balances, payment histories, etc) and credit score (aggregate number in the range of 300-850) are not the same thing. I got a whole lot more out of the credit report (which was free) than the single credit score (which I paid for) — go figure.
I was surprised to see in the credit score that basically every account I’ve opened in my adult life was listed — student loans, credit cards, mortgages, etc. Most of them are paid and closed, so I guess it helps my score to have them listed in my history?
Challenging kids to invest
Sunday, July 30th, 2006We give our children an allowance, and require them to pay tithing and also to save 10%. We have seen good things as they start to understand the concept.
Here’s an interesting story from a blog that I read, that goes a bit further, however:
…my oldest is 10 (or entering 5th grade this next year).I recently gave her a ’summer challenge’ whereby if give her $100 and she can turn it into $150, I’ll double it — and she’ll end up with $300.
It piqued her curiosity, to say the least, and it also inspired a very interesting conversation on how she could do such a thing.
Ever since then she’s had visions of using her creativity and what interests her now (knitting, jewelry-making, etc) to make money. It’s been a very interesting adventure.
It’s one thing to teach our kids to save — very passive activity — versus teaching them to invest and make their money do something. I still have a lot to learn about it myself, too…
