If any or all of the religions/faiths of the world are false, they’re worthless right?

I think it’s kind of crazy that faith/religion/belief in a caring God with a plan is either the most important thing in world and what we should be basing every decision on or…. possibly completely false and of little to no value at all. That’s a pretty wild swing. However, if you look at what a lot of belief systems have contributed, you may quickly realize that even if they are all false, in part or in whole, It’s hard to say they’ve been of no value.

Some famous contributions are as follows: Community centers like the YMCA, disaster relief organizations like the Red Cross/Catholic Relief/Islamic Relief/Salvation Army, rituals which bring comfort and meaning to many based around birth, death and marriage, teachings on compassion, nonviolence, charity, music from composers like Bach, Vivaldi, handl, Liszt, Bruckner, and even modern artists like Amy Grant and MercyMe. Even many famous artists which aren’t known for their beliefs started in religious choirs and singing groups. Interestingly, very religious people are and were responsible for tremendous advances in science as well. People like Galileo, Kepler, Pascal, Pasteur, Mendel, Faraday, Copernicus were all deeply religious and are so famous even many decades after their death no first name is needed. Modern scientists like Francis Collins, Charles Townes, Werner Heisenberg, and Rosalind Picard among other are also famous religious scientists. All claim to be directly motivated by their faith. Art was HIGHLY influenced by faith and many of the world’s most famous artists like Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, El Greco, d.Francesca, Bellini, Bernini, etc were all deeply religious and drew direct inspiration from their faith as well. Much of the world’s most beautiful and inspiring architecture is directly tied to faith as well. Masterpieces like Notre Dame, Angor Wat, St Peter’s Basilica, Lotus Temple, Harmandir Sahib, Shaolin Monastery, Hagia Sophia, Dome of the Rock, Sagrada Familia, and thousands are monuments to faith visited by millions or even billions over the centuries. Most universities have their origin in faith even if they’ve departed from it or tried to scrub it from their history. Harvard’s seal once consisted of two open books and one face-down. The top two symbolized the Old Testament and the New Testament and the bottom book was symbolic of truths yet to be revealed by God. Its original motto was “Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae”, which translates from Latin to “Truth for Christ and the Church”. Harvard is perhaps one of the most famous universities, but hundreds others are/were religious as well such as Oxford, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Duke, Yale, Boston College, BYU, Cambridge, Baylor, University of Chicago, Villanova etc. Beyond Universities, faiths often were responsible for preserving knowledge in monasteries and libraries. It was religious believers which ended apartheid and slavery and fought for and won freedom, independence, social rights/justice. Many, many hospitals were started by those of faith. These include St Mary’s, St Joseph, St Vincent’s, Hotel Dieu, Knights Hospitaller, LDS Hospital, New York Presbyterian, Mayo Clinic, John Hopkins, and Cedars-Sinai and dozens more are either overtly religious or had a very strong religious influence. Much of western civilization and governance arose from those of faith. Documents like the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are foundational to modern civilization and had heavy religious influence.

So, perhaps we came from a “big bang”. Interestingly, the earliest concepts of the idea we now call the “Big Bang” was originally proposed by Georges Lemaitre (a Belgian Catholic Priest) who didn’t take it as far as some do today obviously, but I digress. Still, maybe we came from nothing, and out of nothing, came everything with no creator or plan and we evolved from dust to single cell organisms to every bit of insanely complex life we see today. Maybe when we die we return to nothing and maybe as Freddie Mercury opined in his famous song….nothing really matters. Even if that’s so, we can see what a belief in something has given humanity. What has a belief in nothing brought humanity over the centuries?

A. Give people a fish

B. Teach people to fish

C. Give people fish AND teach people to fish AND gather so many fish in a giant, diversified fish farm that you can continue to give millions and millions of fish away perpetually as long as it doesn’t exceed the fish growth rate and leaves reserves high enough to deal with an inevitable crisis from time to time.

Personally, I would choose option C.

I always wondered why the Church of Jesus Christ (Mormons) got so much “attention” from so many other Christians specifically, and at times, the general population. It seems to be getting more attention than ever as of late. Members make up probably less than 1% of self declared Christians and .00206 of the world population… and that’s using total membership. Using just my own congregation, only about 75% attend.. and estimates are that of the total 17 million members, worldwide, probably less than half are actually active, but let’s say that 75% are…. that’s about 13 million active members out of a world population of about 8.5 billion. Still, it seems like a large part of other ministries and concerned individuals devote an outsized amount of time and energy into tearing down this tiny speck of a church rather than building up their own lives and organizations and I never understood it…… until today… and it’s painfully obvious now. I knew this church was ranked very low in membership, but I never realized where it ranked in another category….. and ranking high in this other category almost universally makes any person or group hated by a large set of the population unfortunately. In regard to the Church of Jesus Christ, some self-proclaimed Christians will say they are trying to tear it down to “save souls” or some such thing. Why, then are they not attacking Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc with the same fervor? I have little doubt that if the Church of Jesus Christ were broke and impotent, it wouldn’t generate the same level of “attention” as it does now.

Sadly, it seems that a large percentage of the population will look at anyone/anything successful and instead of being motivated to work toward their own success, will choose to work to destroy the success of others. Regardless of how much wealthy organizations or individuals donate or contribute, it appears it will never be enough for some until it brings them down below some arbitrary level which isn’t deemed worthy of constant attack. I think that generally speaking, it’s much better to build than destroy. Unless something is being FORCED upon you, I don’t understand how anyone would choose to attack and destroy when they could be building their own thing. In a free country, bad ideas will eventually fail on their own and good ideas will succeed with enough time, effort and resources. When I have something actually forced on me, I’ll likely fight it. Otherwise, I’m spending my time building something. I am not threatened by the success of others. In fact, the more fish others have, the more we can do together and the less likely they will be to come for mine through taxation, litigation, theft etc. I really think there’s enough for everyone to have an happy, fulfilled life if they would voluntarily share and create systems that truly help others but I don’t believe happiness and fulfillment comes only from money and stuff.

Those who think they will only be happy if everyone is totally equal are dooming themselves to perpetual misery. That CANNOT ever be the case and the closest you could get to that is everyone being equally broke because there simply aren’t enough resources in the world for everyone to have a thousand foot yacht, multiple private jets, helicopters, cars, mansions, vacations to all the same epic locations etc. Who would even build and maintain all that junk plus everything else in modern society if everyone were that rich? Even if it were possible, the experience wouldn’t be “special” anyway and no one would care about any of it after a short while. The reality is that you will likely have to work for anything you want and you will be better off working for it and having a goal to strive for than getting it handed to you or jealously stealing it anyway.

So how do we know if quitting something, and replacing it with something else will be better long-term? I am terrible at golf, but I’ll never forget a simple lesson from a golf instructor. He asked if you could choose when to putt, would you want to go first or last? Answers were all over the place, but he said if you go last, you get to go to school for free. Any other putts will help reveal the true lie of the green and may help predict your putt. He told us that if you’re not watching closely while others putt, you’re a fool. We each probably know hundreds of people and we can observe their decisions and results in real-time, but we can also look into history where millions of decisions and results have been documented. We can have the benefit of hindsight which is a whole lot like foresight when it comes to human behavior. We can see which metaphorical putts sink and which never have. This requires a bit of study and a bit of judgment.

Interestingly, popular messaging tells us that judging is the worst possible sin anyone can make, as they simultaneously pass that harsh judgement upon anyone who judges. Popular messaging also encourages people to prioritize their mental health above all else. There is often a grain of truth in everything. Prioritizing mental health is a worthy goal. Not being overly judgmental is also a worthy goal. However, good judgement is not bad. It is vitally essential. You must exercise good judgement of what your body consumes or you will get poisoned. You must also exercise good judgement in what your mind consumes and the choices you make or your mind and life will be poisoned. While everyone can tolerate different levels of poison, the optimal level is probably zero. Sometimes all that separates poison from medicine/food is the dose. Again, we can look to history for appropriate dosage. The dosage for judgement should probably be pretty low. We usually don’t need to pronounce judgements on others, but we absolutely need to evaluate their decisions and consequences if we want to “go to school for free” and not blindly putt away through life. Nothing in life is perfect and people and even animals like to think things could be better. Every day I drive by a field where horses reach over the fence to eat the weeds on the other side by the road that look worse to me than the field they’re in. Whenever I see someone quit their beliefs, marriage, friends etc. I often see the results. It often looks like they’ve traded a lush field for weeds by the side of the road. On the other hand, sometimes there does appear to be a big improvement in their life. Once again, it all depends on what was quit and what it was replaced with. Observing the results of others in the present and throughout history is a valuable insight that, like my golf instructor said, only fools ignore. Everyone has to make their own decisions, but based on what I’ve observed, I’m not quitting anything big in my life.

Paraphrasing Book of Genesis 3:17–19:

“…Cursed is the ground for thy sake… Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee… In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

Whether I’m pulling weeds, trimming plants, growing things, or building something, these verses stick with me the entire time. Like most difficult tasks, I usually dread starting. But about five or ten minutes in, acceptance sets in—and then something strange happens: I begin to enjoy it. Unlike sitting in front of a screen, I feel like I’m accomplishing something of primal importance. I notice the sky, the clouds, the sunset, the mountains, the birds. My thoughts seem deeper. I feel gratitude and humility. All of this exclusively happens when I’m working hard outside.

At first, I focus on the curse and the sweat. But without fail, I’m reminded of the phrase “for thy sake.”

Many of us work hard when we’re young so life will be “easy” when we’re older—meaning we won’t have to sweat or deal with proverbial thistles anymore. Some of us probably reach that stage. If I weren’t so cheap, I could easily hire landscapers, construction workers, and other laborers to do the sweating for me. In a way, I’m glad I don’t. Then, only they would get the true blessings of the labor. Experience has taught me that hard physical work is for my sake—even though I still dread it almost without fail.

People today spend more than ever on shrinks. Looking at the modern industrialized world, I sometimes wonder whether rising levels of bat-shiz crazy are at least in part due to our ability to avoid hard physical labor. It seems plausible that a life spent entirely removed from the land can leave something essential underdeveloped. I’m not suggesting that physical work would solve every mental health challenge, but I would bet the bank it would solve a whole lot.

We are part of the land, and the land is part of us. When we separate ourselves too far from our origins, the outcomes don’t always seem healthy. Personally, I’ll take thorns and thistles over endless concrete, asphalt, and screens any day.

A few weeks ago, my 12-year-old (McKay) was all signed up for a basketball league with about nine other kids and was set to play—but there was a big problem… no one would step up to be the coach. Increasingly desperate emails had been going out for weeks to all the parents, asking for volunteers. It got to the point that the coaches’ meeting was missed because we were about a week away from starting and still had no coach.

My wife had bugged me about it repeatedly, but I had never played outside of church and playground ball growing up, so I refused to volunteer, saying, “Surely someone else will do it.” After all, when I was young and team captains were picking players, I was usually picked somewhere in the middle—but I was always just glad not to be dead last (because that did happen a few times). Despite my best efforts and a strong desire, I’m not good at basketball—which is even worse when you’re kind of tall. I don’t even know all the little rules. I never played competitively and wasn’t very good… definitely not coach material.

At some point, it became clear that it was me or nobody. I assumed all the kids knew that too, so maybe they’d cut me some slack. I volunteered at the very last second and, by some miracle, my wife talked her brother (Trent) into helping us out too. He had the same reservations as I did because, even though he had played in high school, he had never coached anything.

We were supposed to have access to indoor gyms through an online signup, but the city got my email wrong. To this day, I still haven’t received a gym reservation email from them—even though they were supposed to have corrected it. Because of that, and the fact that we had missed the coaches’ meeting, we held our first practice in Trent’s driveway. I figured it would at least make it easy on him since he was kind enough to help.

I knew I couldn’t teach all the finer points of basketball because I didn’t know them myself, but I could at least teach some obvious fundamentals I’ve noticed throughout my kids’ leagues: fast, accurate passing; staying in front on defense; not being afraid to shoot open shots; aggressive defense; strong rebounding; good sportsmanship; and friendly teamwork.

Because we were practicing outdoors on an unlit driveway in the evening, I bought some construction lights and brought an extension cord… a real ghetto setup. My son was mortified that I would be the coach. When I explained my rudimentary plans, he gave me all sorts of grief, telling me none of it would work and that I should just stand there while they did whatever they wanted. I told him to grab some extra basketballs to bring, and he told me that was stupid. In short, he gave me a hard time over every little thing—to the point that I may or may not have lightly smacked him upside the head after he exhausted my patience on the drive over. He was crying, I was running late, and I wondered why the heck I had ever agreed to this.

Before we got out of the truck, I told McKay that this wasn’t what either of us ideally wanted, but it was happening because I had committed to it. I told him it could be a good experience or a bad one—but it was happening either way—so we should start fresh when we got out and both try our best to succeed. He seemed to think that was a better idea than crying in front of his new teammates, so we got out and put on our best smiley faces.
As the kids showed up, I figured the first thing we’d do was make sure everyone was friends and knew each other’s names. I noticed we definitely had a couple of shorter kids, a couple who had never played before, a really shy kid, a kid who would be out for the season because he had broken his foot the day before, and a kid who couldn’t make practices because of other commitments.
On top of that, as an obviously severely disabled kid walked up to the court, I heard some mumbling among the other kids: “Oh my gosh, that kid’s on our team?” I tried to shut that down immediately by asking his name, patting him on the back, telling him I was glad he could make it, and lining him up like he was just as much a teammate as anyone else. More than anything, I didn’t want things to ever get ugly.

Admittedly, none of this seemed like a great omen.
Trent and I had them do some shooting drills, including free throws and layups. What I witnessed made me think maybe I was qualified after all—meaning these kids could barely make a layup. I quickly transitioned from my ambition of winning at least half our games to, “Let’s just make sure everyone is a good sport, makes friends, and has fun.”

I had ordered pizza for everyone after that first practice. We repeated each other’s names and answered “get-to-know-you” questions to foster a friendly atmosphere. I’ve noticed that just one mean kid can poison an entire team, and I absolutely didn’t want anyone being ostracized or treated poorly. I made it clear that none of that would be tolerated.

Our first game was the very next day. I warned the kids that I was a yeller—I’d be calling out each of their names as encouragement and directing traffic on the court. I was hoping for the best, but after that first practice, I thought to myself: We have a bunch of kids who can barely make a shot and at least one pretty questionable coach. I prayed the game wouldn’t be too embarrassing—like, that we would at least make a single basket.

FIRST GAME NIGHT:
I don’t know how to explain it, but this ragtag team completely transformed on game night. They ALL came out strong. The kid who couldn’t make it to practices turned out to be really good! When we coaches barked instructions, they actually listened.
They weren’t just okay—they got better as the game went on. They made shots, grabbed rebounds, and played aggressive, solid defense. They had learned each other’s names. They had embraced the disabled kid.

And we WON!

Granted, we’re talking about 12- and 13-year-olds playing city league basketball—but it felt really good to be part of that.
We’re heading into our last game next week, and it’s been amazing to see what these kids have done. We’ve only lost one game—and I think it was by just two points if I recall.

The shy kid now calls for the ball and plays aggressively. The kids who aren’t great dribblers set screens, get open, pass well, and play very good defense. The shortest kid—who had never played before—is a great ball handler and shooter and plays extremely aggressively. One of the other shorter kids has gotten hurt several times in games (pretty badly once) but has just played through the pain and been a huge contributor as well. We didn’t realize how bad his ankle was until after the game—and we made sure he knew he doesn’t have to do that! Some of the better kids only seem to have improved and grown in confidence. The disabled kid is actually amazing on defense with a little helpful reminders. Whenever we ask who’s tired and wants to sub out, NO ONE ever volunteers. They’re there to fight hard and play as much as possible.

Everyone has found their place and makes a valuable contribution in their own way. The disabled kid has practically become our mascot—the one we all rally around and try to get a chance to score whenever we can. They root for each other by name—and extra hard for him.

I can honestly say that whether we win or lose our last game, this has been one of the most rewarding little experiences of my life. These kids showed up, listened, were kind to each other, showed great sportsmanship and tried their best. That would all be true whether we won all our games or none of them, but let’s be honest—it feels a lot better to win and I’m glad they get to experience that, because they earned it.

A huge thanks to Trent Snow for being our competent coach—even though he’s a young guy with no kids anywhere near that age, already busy with his young family and working hard to grow a new orthodontic practice, along with all the time-consuming business responsibilities that come with it. There’s no doubt that without Trent and all the kids bringing their A-Game, we wouldn’t have had the success we did. It sure wasn’t me.

If you ever get a chance to coach kind of thrust upon you, don’t wait as long as I did. Just step up and take it even if you’re not qualified. Just like it doesn’t take a great actor to know a bad one, it doesn’t take an expert player to notice obvious issues and help correct them…. and my two cents: Be a (encouraging) yeller. I’ve noticed that when coaches don’t have any enthusiasm, players rarely do either.

Also, make sure you show all your kids various volunteer coaches some appreciation. I have a lot more appreciation for them after doing it. It is a bit of a commitment… not huge, but surely not nothing either.

Finally, if you or your kids need orthodontic work, help a good brother (in-law) out and go to Snow Snow Family Orthodontics —just like McKay does and my younger son surely will as well 🙂

Did you know the name “Sooner” as in the “Oklahoma Sooners” was actually another name for a cheater? 🙂

I was watching basketball the other day and the Oklahoma Sooners came up during a break and it renewed my curiosity about that weird name. In April of 1889, the US government executed the poorly conceived idea of having a “land run”, kind of like getting your seat on a Southwest flight, but with way more people, way more stuff, guns and the promise of FREE LAND and lots of it. Apparently people were supposed to wait at some sort of start line and then literally RUN and pick out land at a designated time. Well, some people snuck across the border “SOONER” than they were legally allowed, claiming the best land before the official start. They hid in the grass or wherever they could overnight and then acted like they had run there from the start line. Of course lawsuits and fights broke out and they used the term “Sooner” as an insult for cheaters. The U.S. government later rethought the process just like Southwest finally has, but I’m sure that anyone who has experienced a land rush or seat rush will remember it forever 🙂 Oklahomans later reclaimed the name, turning Sooner into a symbol of boldness, initiative, and state pride—most famously as the nickname of the University of Oklahoma. So there you go.

Like many in the gilded age, they felt the need to show that wealth in the most visible way possible: enormous homes.

The most famous is the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. Built in the 1890s, it is still the largest private home ever constructed in the United States. The house alone is about 179,000 square feet and has 250 rooms. It was originally surrounded by roughly 125,000 acres of land. Biltmore They built many others. The Breakers and Marble House in Newport. Multiple massive mansions on Fifth Avenue in New York City. At one point, ten Vanderbilt mansions stood on that single street. Today, some of them don’t even exist and only one is still owned by the family, but not lived in. Biltmore was opened to the public in 1930 to bring in some money, but it didn’t even turn a profit until 1968. While it now generates a lot of money, its upkeep is extreme and the income is tiny compared to the historic Vanderbilt empire. Furthermore, profits must be split between A LOT of people.

Those palaces weren’t built to produce income. They were built to be a massive show of consumption… and consume, they did.

The Vanderbilt fortune didn’t collapse overnight. It faded. The original fortune was split among many children. Then split again among grandchildren. Then again. Each generation received less, but spent as if the money were unlimited. Maintenance, staff, taxes, parties, renovations. The costs never stopped. At the same time, the family stopped building businesses. The first couple generations focused on creating value. Later generations focused on lifestyle and status. Railroads declined. Taxes rose. The economy changed and the money couldn’t keep up.

By the fourth generation, most of the fortune was gone and by the 1970s, the Vanderbilt name was still famous, but the wealth was simply not there. At a large family reunion in 1973, it was reported that none of the descendants present were millionaires. One of the richest families in history had essentially run out of money. Today, Vanderbilt descendants live normal professional lives. Anderson Cooper, a direct descendant, has said publicly that he inherited little and built his wealth through his career. His mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, created her own success in fashion and art. When she died, her net worth was estimated between 1.5-10 million dollars. That’s a lot of money, but a pittance compared to what could have been if early funds were invested instead of consumed. In fact, if it could have been done, $200 million invested in 1880… just spread among all stocks in the market at the time and rebalanced among new companies as they emerged and then, just in the S&P companies (list started in 1923), a conservative estimate of that wealth today would be 3-6 TRILLION DOLLARS… $3,000,000,000,000! If you put that much in a bank account and only made 1%, that would throw off 30 BILLION per year. If you left it in an S&P500 fund, it would continue to generate $315 BILLION per year. The Biltmore generates some money for descendants, but it is breadcrumbs compared to these figures.

The Vanderbilts show that wealth creation and preservation are different skills. Spending money is much easier than growing it. Big palaces are meant to feel permanent. They’re not. Famous names feel permanent, but they’re often not…unless kept alive as a cautionary tale. Money without structure and discipline doesn’t last. The Vanderbilt fortune didn’t disappear because of bad luck. It disappeared because succeeding generations were not taught the importance of wealth management.

One could take all this in several ways. My take is this: Children should be taught that entitlement is among the worst of vices. Children should be taught to live by the basic (once) common-sense principles of faith, loyalty, gratitude, personal responsibility, hard work, fairness, humility, discipline and integrity. They should be taught to intelligently invest AND give in a sustainable way. If they aren’t going to be taught that or aren’t going to listen, it’s just as well they disburse all their wealth and power back into the greater economy as a whole. One of the worst possible outcomes is for stupid, irresponsible, selfish, lazy, dishonest, entitled people to wield enormous power.

A while ago I picked a woman up at the airport who said she was meeting her husband at the hotel we were going to as he was here in town on business. I asked what he did for work and she said, well, he owns the hotel.,. or more accurately the hospitality holding company which owns that hotel, the one just being finished next door (which he was there to open up) and others in Utah and surrounding states like Colorado, Arizona and Idaho. As usual, we traded the abbreviated life-history and discovered we had kids that were about the same ages and did some of the same things and figured we were about the same age too. She was really nice, down-to-earth and normal looking. Honestly, she looked like she could have gotten her clothes at Costco just like us and it sounds like they enjoy a pretty normal, albeit comfortable life like many people I know. We had similar upbringings and early backgrounds, but one person was going to their 50-70 million dollar double hotel property (educated valuation guess from A.I.) and the other person was driving an Uber 🙂 Life is funny that way.

It strikes me that most of the extremely successful people I’ve encountered usually look really……boring. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Some of them drive unique cars they are interested in or have nice houses or jets, but more often they have pretty average homes and cars, fly coach and they almost never wear designer clothes or fancy jewelry/watches. It seems like that showy stuff is reserved for wannabes or TV/social media grifters trying to sell you something or trying to sell themselves for one reason or another. Really well-off people just don’t seem into the whole flashy lifestyle package.

You really do meet the most interesting people when doing rideshare. Anyone willing to talk at all usually has a good story to tell and 80-90% of people are down to chat. Depending on which way the conversation goes, all sorts of different things come out. The other night I was talking to a guy named Sergio from San Diego that I picked up really late at the airport and he was super-appreciative since there weren’t many drivers out. We had a good conversation about our families, travel, work etc. As often happens with business travelers at the airport, he deduced pretty quick that uber-driving must not be my primary source of income and that we actually had quite a bit in common. It’s amazing how quick you can become friends with a complete stranger when they’re trapped in a car with you for 20-30 minutes 🙂 It sounded like he was pretty high up in Yum! Brands, specifically with “Habit Burger & Grill” and was in town to check up on the local locations. We traded a summarized life history and advice on raising teenagers until we got to his hotel.

Once there, he confirmed how many people were in my family and then gave me a business card with a handwritten note and we shook hands knowing we were unlikely ever to meet again. The card said to present it at the register of any Habit restaurant and they would give us whatever we wanted for 5 people! The Uber fare was already pretty decent, but he also gave a VERY generous tip which isn’t at all uncommon either. Today we used the business card he gave us and the manager asked how I knew Sergio. I told her that I was his Uber driver and the employees looked incredulous as they rang up nearly $80 for the whole family and said they wished THEY were his Uber driver 🙂 It almost always pays to listen to people if they’re in the mood to talk, but sometimes it actually pays too 🙂 I don’t know how high up the food chain he was, but the manager seemed to know. Either way, like so many others, he was a cool dude. Thanks Sergio!

I just drove a guy who is in town from Oregon on a delivery/install job for garage cabinets. I asked him as politely as I could why would anyone hire somebody from Oregon instead of somebody local? He explained that it’s pretty high-end stuff and he goes all over the country. The garage cabinets were $250 grand and the install is $18 grand. That’s wild that somebody would pay more for garage cabinets than some homes cost elsewhere in the country, but once again I don’t have a problem with it. Someone else being able to waste that much money doesn’t hurt me at all and in fact it helps me because I drove the guy that’s getting the contract to do the cabinets who paid for the delivery truck and the freight and all the materials and all the employees and subcontractors and everyone in the supply chain. All those workers involved in producing, marketing and transporting ridiculous garage cabinets mean that many people who I don’t have to pay for their SNAP benefits because they have an actual job that pays well. As far as I’m concerned that’s capitalism for the win again. 👍

I’ve often wondered if having the entire world’s knowledge in my pocket might have some drawbacks. I no longer know more than a couple phone numbers even though when I was younger I committed a bunch to memory. I know hundreds of people, but find myself using technology as a crutch to recall names occasionally. I feel like the knowledge that everything is on my phone has made my already bad memory even worse. I tell myself that because of our interconnected world I probably know more people and have been introduced to more facts than most people in human history and so I probably have my brain packed with more in totality, but in the form of fragments and key words to search instead of entire volumes of information. That excuse does little to make me feel better about a flagging memory, but it’s better than nothing I suppose. If you’ve ever felt the same way, you’re not alone. In fact, long ago, before phones and the internet there were those that surmised that even writing….books/texts themselves could be a net negative for humanity.
According to Plato, Socrates warned that writing is not a friend of human memory. The story goes that the god who invented letters, Theuth, praises writing as a gift, a tool that will boost memory, make people wiser, and help them recall their thoughts. But the king Thamus objects. He predicts that writing will cause forgetfulness, because once people can rely on texts, they stop exercising their internal memory. What Theuth calls an elixir of memory, Thamus calls a reminder.

Beyond memory, Socrates argues that writing is lifeless. A written text is like a painting. It may appear alive, but if you ask it something, it cannot answer. Written words cannot respond or adapt to the reader, and cannot defend themselves if they are misunderstood. Live speech, real conversation, allows for questioning, clarification, and the shaping of ideas. For Socrates, philosophy truly exists only in speech.

Plato expresses the same concerns, yet here is the striking irony: The only reason we know that Socrates believed writing was harmful is because those thoughts were written down by Plato. Without Plato we would likely have no record of the story of Theuth and Thamus, no record of Socrates warnings, and no record of this suspicion that writing could be a net negative. Writing, the very medium they feared might weaken memory and deaden thought, becomes the medium by which their wisdom is passed down. Despite all its potential faults including declining memory, it also grants a kind of survival. I wonder if the danger may not lie in writing itself, but in forgetting to question and to discuss in person along with reading and writing.

Still, I wish I could remember like ancient Greeks apparently did. In the time of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, memory was not a party trick. It was essential to their culture and part of their traditional education or “paideia”. Greek Paideia is the education of the ideal citizen, including intellectual, moral, and physical development, to form a well-rounded citizen through subjects like rhetoric, math, music, poetry, gymnastics, and philosophy. Educated Greeks trained their memories with a discipline not often found in modern times. A young Athenian could not rely on books to store knowledge. He had to store it within himself.

The scale of what they memorized is incredible. The Homeric orations of The Iliad and the Odyssey were just two that Greeks memorized. The Iliad contains about 15,000 lines. The Odyssey is composed of about 12,000 lines. In modern printed form, each poem runs to about 4-5 hundred pages, depending on formatting. In total they amount to around two hundred seventy thousand words in translation and these were not the only works stored in memory. Performers memorized even more. Students memorized long passages of lyric poetry, moral precepts, legal codes, and stories from various traditions. This was not unusual or extraordinary. It was apparently pretty typical. Ordinary citizens also developed powerful memories. A student might spend his youth memorizing hundreds of lines at a time, revisiting them frequently, and embedding them so deeply that their minds served as the libraries of their world.

Compared with this, the modern mind, surrounded by written and digital storage, rarely needs to remember anything of great length. We outsource memory to devices, screens, and books. The Greeks, by contrast, lived in an environment that forged memory through constant use. Their world was built on the assumption that the human mind is capable of holding immense amounts of material if it is trained to do so.

This is how stories as old as Homer reached Plato’s age intact. For centuries, a chain of living memories kept them alive. The poems survived because people memorized and recited them. Although writing later preserved these works in a more permanent way, it is the power of human memory that bridged the long centuries between Homer and the philosophers who would eventually debate the value of writing itself.

In 1906, Francis Galton watched a crowd at a county fair guess the weight of an ox. The average of 800 guesses was 1,197 pounds. The true weight? 1,198 pounds. The crowd beat almost every individual, including the experts. Under the right conditions, large groups of ordinary people can collectively outperform even the smartest individuals. James Surowiecki wrote a popular book about this effect called “The Wisdom of Crowds”.

In typical fashion, people will often be tempted to use these findings to support their own viewpoints. For example, if a large population votes for communism, that must be the wisdom of crowds at work. That’s a false conclusion, though, because according to Surowiecki, there are several crucial ingredients for the wisdom of crowds to be made manifest:

1. Diversity of opinion
2. Independence (people aren’t just copying each other)
3. Decentralization (local, specialized knowledge)
4. A good way to aggregate (usually simple averaging)

Get those right and crowds can estimate many types of things remarkably well. Mess them up—through groupthink, herding, social media echo chambers, or manipulation—and the crowd turns into a dumb, stampeding mob.

Below are some other interesting examples besides the ox:

-Jellybeans in the Jar (many replications)
From university experiments to office contests, averaging hundreds of guesses routinely lands within 2–3% of the true number—far better than the typical single guess (which can be off by 50% or more).

– Prediction Markets
Platforms like PredictIt and Polymarket consistently outperform polls and pundits on elections, Oscar winners, and economic indicators. During the 2016 U.S. election, prediction-market odds tracked the actual outcome far more closely than most expert forecasts.

-The Hollywood Stock Exchange
A play-money market let users “invest” in upcoming movies. Its prices predicted opening-weekend box-office revenue more cheaply and accurately than industry professionals.

-Google’s Internal Prediction Markets
For years Google ran internal markets on everything from launch dates to cafeteria menu popularity. The crowd’s aggregated bets routinely beat official forecasts and expert teams.

-Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
When contestants poll the studio audience, the crowd is right about 91% of the time. “Phone a friend” (supposed expert) is right only about 65% of the time.

The conclusion shouldn’t be that crowds are always wise. It’s that, when properly structured, collective judgment can be astonishingly sharp—often sharper than any single expert sitting alone in a room. The many, under the right rules, really can know more than the one.

Another takeaway is the importance of diversity of opinion. When groupthink or herd mentality becomes too strong due to stifling of divergent opinions, bad predictions are made, bad policy is enacted, and bad outcomes result.

When a child, friend or family member makes certain decisions, the most common reaction I see from parents these days is them affirming and even celebrating whatever decisions the child makes because they want to be compassionate and loving. It seems to me that the numbers are telling us that when society abandons all pre-held standards, does a 180 and celebrates/affirms certain choices of their children it may seem like the “nice” thing to do, but actually has disastrous consequences as it perpetuates the apparent underlying problem.

When my kids were young, they probably would have opted to have a bowl of frosted flakes with Sprite on it for every meal if given the choice. If asked why they would eat something like that, they may tell me they were just born that way…and I would believe them. I would submit that people are ALL born with a proclivity to do various things that are not for our long-term good. Some of us have a harder time with certain things than others and if we live long enough, some of us eventually figure out that excessive levels of sugar, money, power, gambling, liquor, lust, sleep, gaming, food, scrolling or any number of other things are not good for the body or soul. I don’t believe any amount of societal acceptance or celebration will change that fact. Sometimes the best love is tough love: Tell kids the truth. Eating frosted flakes with Sprite is not a great idea. If a child, friend or a family member is an adult, we have to accept that they can make whatever choices they please, but we don’t have to affirm and celebrate every choice to be a true friend….just the opposite. For example, encouraging an alcoholic or drug addict is not loving. I don’t think one need be mean, cruel, judgmental or confrontational, but I do think it’s wise to continue to lead by positive example instead of abandoning correct principles in a misguided attempt to please everyone. You can’t please everyone. Furthermore, if you are appeasing the wrong, you are offending the right. That’s just the nature of some things.

“Going to the Big House”

A family going from nearly 30,000 sqft house, will likely go to an even bigger one….

I came across this again on Realtor.com of all places. I have a couple recurring thoughts when these type of things pop up…and they pop up a lot in Utah especially it seems. Given the number of conversations I’ve had with people who wonder aloud “How does so-and-so afford that?, maybe I’ll do a few showcases from memory. I believe that a lot of people who have an ostentatious life style simply worked hard, earned it and can afford it. Some may be financing that lifestyle by living well beyond their means with no savings and loads of debt. Others may have been lucky or had it handed to them. Others (like those mentioned in this article) appear to simply have cheated and/or stole, and contrary to what you were taught as a kid, cheaters do prosper (financially at least) all the time, but there’s always a tradeoff. They trade their soul for ill-gotten gains and sometimes, they actually go to prison. Until they do get caught, they may look like pillars of the community…..BYU grad, philanthropic, religious, conservative, family businessman is how these guys were likely described up until the day their house was raided by law enforcement.

Regardless of all of that, comparison is the thief of joy. If you can eliminate/reduce comparison from your life you will be WAY ahead in the parts of life that matter, because in my opinion a mansion (and many other things) don’t matter at all and in fact consume your limited time and mental resources which could be spent on building relationships and other things that do matter.

When you inevitably make a comparison because you’re human, just remember that not all that glitters is gold. I’ve met thousands of people… more since I started doing rideshare and I’ve learned that EVERYONE has their problems. A rare few do APPEAR to have that balance of peace, prosperity, great family and relationships and time to enjoy it. It’s not so much that they state it like that, it’s that you can hear it in their voice. People who really seem to have their life together just sound a certain relaxed, contented way. In my experience, that person is usually well over 50 and they nearly always attribute their success to hard work both in their business and relationships and a healthy dose of luck when they were younger. Still, many of those have said they lost everything or nearly did at least once but they were willing and able to put the work in to rebuild and/or reinvent their life.

That being said, there are about eight billion people on earth. I think it’s important to remember just how rare it is for a person to even appear to have “everything” let alone the few that may actually have it for a fleeting period of time. Far more often, people are just trying to survive whether they are students, employed, white collar, blue collar, homeowners, renters, homeless, married, single, rich looking or less rich looking. If all you have reasonably good health, a roof over your head, food to eat, clean water and even a single real friend, you’re as rich as you need to be today. Whether you have that much or not today, it’s likely that you can build on it tomorrow until you do. Truly, having things to work for appears to be a blessing unto itself, Many who were born into riches and/or fame or acquire it suddenly appear to manage it very poorly.

This is not a new observation. Recently I was re-reading Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (written in 1719). In the following passage, Crusoe was talking about what his father had taught him:

” He bade me observe it, and I should always find that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind, but that the middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind; nay, they were not subjected to so many distempers and uneasinesses, either of body or mind, as those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances on the one hand, or by hard labour, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet on the other hand, bring distemper upon themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kind of virtue and all kind of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending the middle station of life; that this way men went silently and smoothly through the world, and comfortably out of it, not embarrassed with the labours of the hands or of the head, not sold to a life of slavery for daily bread, nor harassed with perplexed circumstances, which rob the soul of peace and the body of rest, nor enraged with the passion of envy, or the secret burning lust of ambition for great things; but, in easy circumstances, sliding gently through the world, and sensibly tasting the sweets of living, without the bitter; feeling that they are happy, and learning by every day’s experience to know it more sensibly.”

I don’t know about anyone else, but I think Defoe’s observation is accurate. Certainly the “middle station” could be viewed as it’s own trap, but I’d choose it a thousand times over the other two options. 🙂

After plenty of thought and input, we did help Dakota buy his first car. I have to admit I had a strong urge to live vicariously through him and get him the Corvette, Lexus or full size truck he was REALLY pushing for. I even called on a couple, but I never felt at all good about it. After some debate between my wife and I, we did pay for half of his car and let him pay the other half. Even after taxes, registration and all the parts and supplies we put into it I think we’re into it around $2,500 total. It’s what I feel a kids first car should be: slow, old, and cheap to buy and maintain. He won’t be burdened with the massive extra cost of collision/comprehensive or the debt he would owe us for a much more expensive car. He has already paid everything that he owes on it and in a very real way, he now has one of the greatest luxuries one can have in a car and one that 40% of American adults don’t have…. no car payment.

Instead, he opted to invest a fair amount of money in an S&P 500 fund for his retirement instead of wasting it. I know he still wants something better badly so we’ll see if he sticks to the plan, but if he keeps investing this high a percentage of his income, he’ll have millions by the time he’s my age and could retire at the ripe old age of 40-45. That’s true luxury.

Besides all that, buying a car that needed some work had a nice side benefit. For years, McKay and Dakota have fought pretty regularly but I’ve noticed a HUGE and lasting change since we bought the car. McKay loves doing projects and he couldn’t wait to help sand, paint and remove old window tint. He was at least twice as excited about it as Dakota. I kind of like that stuff too, so we all spent many hours on it together. McKay did a lot of sanding and scraping. I installed a hood release where the vice grips were, put a new mirror switch in, installed a new EGR valve and sewed a hole in the drivers seat (which turned out amazingly well if I do say so myself). Dakota did most of the painting but McKay and I helped with that too. I feel like we really bonded over this little project, but especially Dakota and McKay.

Now, at best this is a “if you squint it’s mint” sort of car…and you really, really have to squint from a great distance, but my kids like it and I kind of do too in a nostalgic sort of way. It’s a 98 Honda Civic coupe that Dakota wanted to change from badly oxidized silver to badly painted white. I had a white 95 Acura Integra coupe when I was younger that I took on a cross country trip with my brother and we made many great memories with it and Dakota’s car is basically the same as it was. It even smells the same : ) Old Hondas have a very unique smell to them somehow. I also had a 93 Integra and a 93 Civic and they were all pretty good cars that served me well in my youth and I hope this one serves him well too.

In summary, consider buying a junker and fixing it up with your kids. Maybe they’ll appreciate it more and each other too and it could even help set them up with good habits for the future.

Today’s story is very short. I went to pick up a guy at Lowe’s in a Tesla Model 3 (very small car) and a bozo named Todd wanted me to back up to the garden area so he could put a TREE in the trunk. I laughed and said that there’s no way. I actually thought he was kidding, but he said, “We can make it work, just back up here some. We can leave it hanging out”. As he went back toward the tree, I rolled the window up, cancelled the ride and drove away. At one point, Lowe’s slogan was “Home to Any Possibility”. Well, Todd found the limits of those possibilities today. THE END 🙂

The greatest non-flex is enjoying time with your family. Today I went for a bike ride with my kids and a couple of their friends and we played in the river and tag at the new park on a beautiful Friday afternoon. It was free, and it was the best.

If I had a ridiculously large home, overpriced clothing/watches and fancy cars etc., I don’t think I could possibly have been happier than playing tag with my kids or going for a bike ride with my family.

If I had a giant mansion, I could only enjoy the space that I could reach while extending my arms outward at one time… that’s it. As a general rule, I prefer the splendor of the outdoors to anything people can build anyway. My cheap phone tells the time BETTER than a million dollar watch. A shirt from Costco functions just as well or better than one from Neiman Marcus. When it comes to cars, in my opinion a boring Toyota has some of the best luxury features of any vehicles out there: Reliability, durability, cheap maintenance and great resale value. They let me live my life with minimal worry. While we’re on the subject of luxury, I’ve come to the conclusion that my favorite luxury (besides freedom and time with family) is a hot shower with clean water. Practically everyone in this country enjoys that pinnacle of luxury which is clean, reliable indoor plumbing.

We’re lucky enough to have a really cheap little property in the mountains and it has what I call a “shebin” on it (shed/cabin). It’s only like 10’x12′. The entire shebin and its contents are probably only worth a few thousand bucks, but we enjoy all the important luxuries of our real home even if it’s all extremely cheap and compact. Often I think I like the shebin better than my real house because it has the huge luxuries of peace and quiet, beautiful views and easy access to the lake, mountains and streams. Plus, it’s liberatingly easy to maintain and its small size forces us outside where my boys and I love to be anyway. It’s said that it’s the little things in life that make us happy, but I think it’s the big things too… big as all outdoors. I believe that fishing, shooting, hiking, stargazing and bonfires are things billionaires and rednecks can pretty much enjoy equally if they choose to.

In summary, it really doesn’t take much to have a great day or a great life. Most everyone around here enjoys a standard of living better than kings of just a couple hundred years ago and living is really easy if you don’t worry about “flexing”. Just get outside play tag with your kids once in a while.

Did you know that humans share about 84% of the same DNA as dogs and 98.8% with chimpanzees? Well, according to those who make such pronouncements, it’s true and I’m inclined to believe it. After all, I’ve seen chimps and dogs fight their own over scraps they don’t even really need and I’ve now witnessed a rideshare driver threaten me (a fellow driver) with a gun at the airport (also over scraps). While one may expect this sort of thing in some cities, I never would have expected it in my safe little town.

I’m a night owl and used to watch TV or work on various things on the computer long after the wife and kids were asleep. When I discovered rideshare driving, I quickly realized I could do the same thing with a laptop or the built-in screen in my car while waiting for rides at the airport (as I am doing while writing this very story as a matter of fact). I found the darkest corner away from all the lights so I could avoid glares on my screens and even enjoy the stars and the occasional meteor shower. Pretty quickly I realized that this made some of the other drivers uneasy somehow. One or more of them would roll up on me and just stare at me for a while… sometimes only ten feet away. Sometimes I would just wave at them and eventually they would leave and go back to their normal cluster of drivers. One day, out of sheer curiosity I joined the cluster and got to meet a few of them. Some of these guys have been doing this a loooooooong time and some of them take great pride in their knowledge of the “game”. Apparently some drivers work the airport exclusively and basically live there most of the day and night. I didn’t get the impression that a lot of them had much else going on in their life. This seemed to be their everything and they lived for it. As a plane came In and the time came for ride requests to be expected, one guy actually just chanted over and over “where’s the rides, WHERE’S THE RIDES!” with increasing exasperation as they weren’t forthcoming. I’ve never really witnessed someone with a crack addiction, but I imagine they would sound something like this guy as they were looking for their next score. At the time I didn’t think much of a darker side to this because these guys bragged with great pride that they had 5 star ratings over thousands of rides and even showed me. You don’t get that sort of record without being decently professional on some level.

I am one who tries not to look down on any kind of ethical work. In fact, one of my favorite quotes is the following: “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” – Martin Luther King. If you feel called to be an Uber driver and can fulfill your responsibilities and are happy and satisfied, then good on you. That being said, I feel called to do a few other things and like making a little more than I ever could doing rideshare exclusively. To me this is a hobby where I can meet new people and make a few bucks in my spare time and nothing more. I stated as much after some of the other drivers were gleefully sharing with me some of their tips and tricks but told me they would of course hold back their best secrets. My intention in telling them I didn’t take this too serious wasn’t to denigrate their chosen profession. In fact I was trying to let them know that I wasn’t their serious competitor. I could tell they were almost disappointed that I wasn’t fully committed to the cause. Shortly after this interaction, I decided it was probably best to just go back to my normal spot since I didn’t feel like I would probably be well accepted by this group. I would still get the occasional stare-down by a few of the drivers which I hadn’t met that day, but I had gotten pretty used to it.

One night a couple weeks ago, I got a particularly long and aggressive stare-down and I decided to entertain myself by following the guy back to his spot and doing the exact same thing he did to me. Well, he wasn’t amused. Within seconds of me rolling up on him (in a far less aggressive manner than he always did to me) he hopped out of his car with a gun, put it in his waistband and then pulled his shirt up so I could see it. He then fluffed his shirt and waved his hands saying “What’s up homie? Wassup!!” My car was recording the whole thing and to be honest I was trying not to laugh because the whole situation was so comical. I rolled my window down and asked him what WAS up, because I didn’t know. He informed me that shady things go down at the airport with rideshare drivers and that they need to watch out. He asked how long I’ve been driving and I said about a year. He said I needed to watch out and not do anything shady or I would find out what’s up. I was really trying hard to keep a straight face and tried to turn my laughing smile into a friendly smile. I told him that I was just rolling up to see if I could talk to him and see what the situation is. He told me that he and some of the other drivers take it upon themselves to make sure nothing shady is going on. It struck me that carrying a gun and threatening a stranger with it seemed pretty shady, but I digress…. Anyway, I ended up making friends with the guy (I think) and we shook hands and he showed me all his perfect 5 star ratings and driving history on his apps and I showed him my (smaller) history and we parted as something like respected colleagues if not actual friends. As soon as he left I made sure to go back to my footage to replay it and discovered the damn car only saves the last ten minutes after I hit the save button. It was then that I was really ticked off because I really wanted to have that peacock show on video for my own amusement if nothing else. Instead all I have is the last ten minutes of us talking. I learned a couple things: Some people take rideshare driving DEAD serious and it pays to know how your car’s recording system works. I may not have had a gun actually pointed at me and nothing was stolen, but I felt robbed…. by the car’s dashcam.

1. One of the biggest expenses is housing. The government decided everyone was going to own a home and guaranteed mortgages. They now directly or indirectly guarantee about 70% of all mortgages. This did indeed increase home ownership as it allowed for much lower down payment requirements and interest as there was less risk to private mortgage origination entities. When millions of buyers enter the market for a product and the supply can’t always keep up with demand, prices skyrocket. In addition, a myriad of laws and regulations prevent building in a lot of areas of the country and increase the time and expense of building, further decreasing supply while demand increases. I think that if the government didn’t effectively throw money at unqualified homebuyers who weren’t willing to put down a significant amount and instead allowed the market to adjust for true risk by requiring significant down payments and higher interest rates, it would have limited demand and prevented wild price swings and minimized boom/bust cycles in real estate.

2. Another of the largest expenses is health care. At some point, dedication to physical fitness in schools was replaced with a fanatical devotion to self esteem, inclusiveness etc. instead of actual fitness. Pharmaceutical and health insurance companies were allowed to control the government through lobbyists and media is dominated by drug companies and commercials. Health care has been switched from local doctors and cash payments to mega-corporations with armies of lawyers and lobbyists. As with most large entities this causes ever-increasing bloat. It is estimated that 40% of hospital expenses are “administrative”, 10% is fraud and 25% is sheer waste. On top of that, the health insurance industry has likewise been consolidated and suffered similar bloat in the form of administrative costs, fraud and waste. Cash prices for drugs and care are often half the price or less than when insurance is involved. Deductibles are designed to be so high that you never get any benefit out of your insurance and premiums are as high as mortgages used to be. Meanwhile a large percentage of the country gets “free” healthcare from the government which just means all the rest of us have to pay for that. While they use hospitals as free hotels and get better care than many middle class families costs rise exponentially for the rest of us. Once again government intervention and , “free money” or cheap money and perverse incentives creates demand that shouldn’t be there with predictable economic results.

3. Another large expense is transportation. In other countries such as India, you can actually buy a brand new car for $6,000 right now. While emissions standards were good in the US (catalytic converters), the government couldn’t stop there. They require an ever expanding list of expensive, heavy, safety equipment while forcing manufacturers to comply with impossibly difficult efficiency standards which results in sky-high auto prices and extremely heavy cars “for our safety”. It also results in manufacturers creating less reliable motors to try to comply with efficiency standards or to outright cheat on tests to appear to comply. We have a narrower range of motors and models than other countries and get less reliable vehicles which have to be replaced and repaired more often (which actually causes more emissions) because the government mandates it “for our good”.

4. Another large expense is child care. At some point the government and media decided that all households should be dual-income. The government, education system and media diminished the role of motherhood and families and promoted dual-incomes at all costs. This had the short-term effect of adding to the labor force and creating more tax revenue and GDP but created generations of latchkey kids who felt they were valued less than the material items their parents traded for time with them. A large number of them apparently learned that material things were more valuable than family and decided not to form a family or get married at all. If they did partner at all, many decided to become DINK partners (Dual Income No Kids) Those who do have children often pay $2-3K per month for strangers to raise their children. A lot of the “extra” income from the dual income family is absorbed by child care costs, professional clothing, eating out at the office, commute/vehicle costs, and the inflation caused by increased demand for goods and services from all of the above including that caused by the increase from all the second incomes themselves. This shift in values has led to falling birthrates in many developed countries to such a degree that it is considered a national security risk. The US birthrate has been slowing as well and is projected to peak and then fall within several decades. Social Security, medicaid/medicare and the like are basically insolvent now but can be propped up by simply generating more money out of thin air which leads to ever greater inflation of course. Without enough young blood to support an ever-growing aging population, ugly choices will likely be made by a younger generation which, in fairness, was taught not to value human life and relationships over material possessions and convenience.

5. Education is another huge expense. Like housing, the government decided EVERYONE needed an advanced degree and that Americans should all be above blue-collar work. The policy was to give away as much cheap or free money to any kid with zero income or experience who asked as long as it was for “higher education”. Universities soon got wise to this and often made tuition and expenses as high as the government would guarantee. As soon as universities demanded more, the government would allow more debt which resulted in ever-escalating costs that we see today. While the government throws money at a lot of unqualified students and belittles those who don’t attend, it seems to say nothing of the fact that only 62.2% of those students actually graduate despite severely diminished educational standards. There is now $1.74 trillion in student debt for a high number of dropouts and worthless degrees. Meanwhile, a great deal of manufacturing capacity has been outsourced to unfriendly nations who now possess hundreds of millions more willing workers and ever increasing heavy manufacturing and technology production infrastructure. Now many Americans are too good to do “dirty” work. A lack of willing blue-collar workers (which are the true backbone of any society) has actually become a national security threat of such magnitude that there is now a costly national campaign being run just to recruit workers for naval shipyards.

It seems to me that less government intervention in EVERYTHING could help minimize a lot of problems.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help. – Ronald Reagan

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for a while and it’s going to be long. It will also wax philosophical and even biblical because like it or not, many of our social mores in this country are rooted in the bible. This is in regard to quite a number of conversations I’ve had with people recently but also many in the past.

It is commonly accepted that it is far more virtuous to “give in secret” than to have any credit drawn to you unintentionally or otherwise. I think a lot of the reason for that in our society can be traced back to verses like Matthew 6:1-4 “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

In principle, I agree with most of it but in practice I do not. First, the last part basically implies you will do it for a greater reward later than the one you might receive now. To me, this is still a selfish motivation, especially when it is often likely in nobody’s best interest to “give in secret” as I posit below.

As is so often the case in the Bible, there is a verse in the very same book which could be interpreted to directly conflict with the one above: Matthew 5:15 states “ Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel (basket), but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” I believe most other classic religions have similarly conflicting doctrines/scripture which most cultures have based their moral foundations on when it comes to charity.

Now I ask anyone, which one does experience, common sense and logic dictate will yield the greater good? On the one hand, you may go to great lengths to “give in secret” like some kind of charity ninja in some attempt to get “extra” rewards later by delaying your gratification now. No one sees it. Not even the recipient knows who to thank or who loves them enough to help. You get no credit, but you DO get the satisfaction of knowing God (or the powers that be) is metaphorically patting you on the head all the rest of your days and you have a super-duper reward coming in the afterlife. On the other hand, what if you let your light shine before all? I’m not talking about drawing undue attention necessarily, but simply NOT hiding your good works or even promoting good works in general?

Promotion/advertising/influencing is an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars. If it doesn’t work, then millions of companies sure are wasting a lot of money. Clearly it does work. Often marketing budgets are a HUGE percentage of the total cost of bringing a product to market whether it is a movie or widget. This may be looked at as a waste of money by some, but cold, hard statistics have proven time and again that even though it adds no value whatsoever to the product itself, it adds tremendous value in bringing the product to a much broader market and increasing the overall impact many-fold.

Like it or not, it is the same with charities. Drawing attention to charities and charitable acts amplifies the impact tremendously. Humans have a basic desire to do good, but they also have a basic desire to belong, to compete and yes, even to be recognized. Any charity which ignores this fact does so at tremendous cost to its stated mission. There’s not too many wings at Ivy League universities named “the anonymous wing”, and it’s really not that inspiring either. Everyone likes a good, inspiring story. There’s no inspiring story about the anonymous person who did anonymous things to be able to anonymously contribute millions to a cause. Even when an individual is deeply flawed (as we all are), they can still be far more inspirational than the Mr/Ms anonymous. Consider Andrew Carnegie who was one of the richest people the world had ever seen. He is legendary for being a rags-to-riches business tycoon who was ruthless at times, but also is well known for his extreme philanthropy. Then consider a contemporary of his who was known to be extremely ruthless in business and by some accounts the richest man to ever live. John D. Rockefeller was inspired or maybe even guilted or compelled by competition into even greater philanthropy by the massive show of charity by Carnegie. These are just two examples of flawed humans not unlike any of us. One made the choice to make a public display of charity and spent the modern equivalent of many billions of dollars helping others. By one biblical verse, he has his reward now and will surely NOT be entitled to greater rewards later. On the other hand, he let his light shine and motivated a man of even greater means to outdo him in charitable giving. Both men created foundations which were so richly endowed that they exist to this day and will exist in perpetuity under good governance. I believe this same competitive spirit or inspirational example drives the philanthropy of those of means great and small to this very day. Motives may be completely pure or they may be competitive and self-aggrandizing. I would submit the following: 1. It is not our job to judge the motivations of others. 2. It probably doesn’t matter to the recipient of the charity what the motivations are so much as it does that the charity was rendered.

Anyone performing charitable acts in public will fall into at least one of the following two categories
1. They want the credit and glory and wouldn’t contribute without it.
2. They have the intelligence to realize that their good works promoted will inspire others to contribute as well and thereby amplify the impact.
Admittedly, there may be some overlap. Again,we’re all only human.

This same general line of logic can be applied elsewhere in the same realm. Many religions are castigated for their perceived wealth. Why would religions have expensive churches, temples, mosques, synagogues or savings and investments when they could be using all that money right now to feed the poor? Well, again, we’re dealing with flawed humans. Perhaps in a perfect world we would all live as equals in a communal environment which would only be as nice as could be afforded for ALL. Maybe everything would be utilitarian and purely functional. No time or resources would be “wasted” on things with no intrinsic, functional value. Maybe there would be no art, decoration, entertainment or luxury so long as even one person would be left wanting for anything. Of course, human nature being what it is at our current state of emotional evolution, this would never work. We are naturally competitive and desirous of elevation and luxury. There have been religions and even governments based on communal living and they have all failed spectacularly because they fail to account for basic, primal human nature.

I believe in a pragmatic God. I believe those truly striving to follow God must also be pragmatic. Humans aren’t ready for communal living and may never be. For the greatest good to be done, people in general at their present state of development, just like children, need to be indulged a lot in order to extract the greatest good from them. People want to meet together. They need a building to meet in. Naturally they will want the buildings to be comfortable and if possible, things of beauty. God doesn’t need this. It doesn’t really directly help those in need, but I do believe it is in these unnecessarily nice buildings that people come together to inspire each other to do the work that really does need to be done. It is there that funds are generated and righteous labors are planned. In regard to those charitable funds generated and saved, this only makes sense. Just like in philanthropic foundations with perpetual endowments, there must first be a critical mass of funds generated and saved in order for an endowment to be perpetual. That is just basic economics. Without a wisely invested principal there can be no interest and without interest the funds will eventually be completely depleted and will require constant replenishment especially at the times of tragedy when funds are most needed yet least available.

All of this is to say, please consider less your “greater reward” or any overhead/transaction costs and more your greatest impact. Also, considering only the greatest efficiency on paper without factoring in human nature will lead to diminished returns and can even to lead to bad judgments and feelings about people and institutions which really are having a huge, positive impact in the world.

I say let your inspirational light shine 🌟✨

Over the past few years, I’ve seen a lot of people make big announcements about massive life changes and I’ve heard about others even very recently. I thought I’d make my own announcement: It is not with a heavy heart that I take a moment to let everyone know about some huge changes that I’ve decided not to make in my life. I’m sticking with my faith. I’m still a straight male and remain unconfused about it. While I’m as attracted to all the beautiful women as I’ve ever been, I’m sticking with my wife and kids. My plan is the same as it always was: To try and live a life of commitment to family, friends and faith.

I don’t believe in, agree with or understand every single thing my church, country, wife, parents, kids, siblings, friends or other family members have done but I’m sure I’m better off with all of them than without. While some people quit a commitment over something in the past, others quit over some one(s) in the present. It’s true that there’s some turds in every organization and sometimes they even float to the top. Sometimes, YOU are a turd in the organization and can only hope that people can patiently give you some grace while you work through it as you try to do for them. It’s said that a turd can’t be polished, but like people, they can be transformed given enough time. If you don’t know what coprolite is, check it out. Some of that is worth a ton of money!😂

I know a lot of people (probably most that I know) live their lives out in quiet commitment to the important people and principles in their life with little dramatic changes. There’s no parades for them. There’s no hundreds of comments telling them they’re brave, special or amazing. They don’t seek much attention and they don’t get it. Often all they may have is a few strong friendships, family bonds and the silent respect and admiration that they’ve earned from years of dependable service to those in their sphere.

To those making those huge life changes, good luck with that. I took a little different path for a while too when I was much younger. It wasn’t for me, but that doesn’t mean it can’t work for others I guess. I truly wish you the best and I hope we can still be friends. To all those stable, boring, predictable, basic older folks that have built a great life brick by brick, I hope to follow in your footsteps. To all those still slogging away at it, I hope to keep on keeping on alongside you. An undramatic life may not be the most exciting, but it can be pretty darn good.

Why do cruises (and other things) look so much more expensive than they did just a month or two ago?

Well, contrary to popular belief, good ideas actually do come out of California once in a while. On July 1 2024, California’s “Honest Pricing Law” went into effect. It makes it illegal for most businesses to advertise something that doesn’t include all required fees or charges.

Because California is such a large market, most companies just change to suit their largest consumer block and that is what has happened for the cruise industry and others on many occasions including this one. Cruises didn’t suddenly become twice as expensive, they simply were forced to advertise a lot of the fees they used to spring on you later in the purchase process.

Personally, I would LOVE to see a national law that goes even further. I think ALL prices nationwide should include everything right down to the local tax with a simple disclaimer that your sales tax rate could vary based on you tax-exempt status or place of residence, but for everyone else, that would be the 100% all-inclusive price with no hidden fees.

Why?

Maybe I just wanted to have an old-fashioned mortgage burning party. That used to be a thing (like when “All in the Family” was still on TV), and it seemed like a good thing.

If money isn’t the root of evil, debt might be. It is the opposite of freedom and seems to be the cause of much “unpleasantness” in life. Still, our rate was only 4% on a $217,000 balance when we decided to really start paying it off. Most financial experts don’t recommend paying off a mortgage with a rate that low. Some of their reasons are listed below along with some counterpoints:

STANDARD FINANCIAL ADVICE #1: Sound investments will pay more than the mortgage rate, so don’t give up the potential gains just to make an emotional decision.

Counterpoints:

a. I’m not “lucky”. I have an uncanny ability to lose an even-odds bet five times in a row. I was never going to risk an entire $217,000 anywhere, so that was a moot point. I was only willing to risk what I felt we could afford to lose. Anything beyond that amount was being kept in absolutely secure, FDIC insured accounts paying only 1% on average.

b. I have a low degree of confidence in corporate America where “sound investments” are made. I’ve witnessed many “large and trusted” corporations fail completely. I even worked for one of them for about eight years. At one time my old company ranked 122 on the Fortune 500 and employed tens of thousands of people. It doesn’t even exist anymore. If you want to know why, just look up “Countrywide Home Loans” or “Countrywide Financial Corporation”. Many blame the whole financial collapse on them. The “Enrons” of the corporate world are often highly respected right up until they collapse completely.

c. Numbers don’t lie, but they sure are misleading. Look at a closing disclosure for any mortgage. Our rate of 4% on $217,000 showed $155,957 being paid in interest. That’s actually 72% interest, but the math works out when amortized over 30 years. That sounds a WHOLE lot worse than 4%. To be fair, putting $217,000 to work in stocks or bonds paying 5% or more would return much more than that already large figure… if all went well.

d. Remember that $155,957 figure? Well, it was always going to be much more than that. How can that be? Well, that figure only applies if we actually keep our home and same mortgage for thirty years without refinancing. You see, the earlier part of any loan is loaded with interest. My first payment of $1,035.99 had $723.33 going to interest and only $312.66 actually paying the home off. 70% of my payment was going to interest. Again, the math all makes sense over 30 years. The problem is that practically NO ONE stays in the same home for 30 years without refinancing. People often refinance every few years and reset the clock with another 30 year mortgage. Sometimes they even add closing costs on and increase the principal.

e. Investments don’t even guarantee the principal let alone their current rates of return, but paying off my mortgage was practically guaranteeing a place to live PLUS $155,957 in saved interest.

f. During the last major crash, even a lot of “safe” investments lost 28-30% or more of their value and millions lost their homes as well. Investments don’t pay more just because they’re being charitable. They promise a higher return in direct correlation to perceived risk. Just as on a roulette table, the riskier the bet the greater the risk premium. One might argue that a person is a fool for not betting on a single number and making 35-1 instead of “ONLY” doubling your money on an outside bet. If you’re lucky and know when to leave the table, riskier bets are great, if not, hopefully you learn not to rely on luck.

S&P500 – “Safest Investments”:

g. If you can pay your mortgage off but choose not to, you’re essentially paying interest on borrowed money for speculation. If you already owned your home outright, no reputable investment adviser in the world would suggest mortgaging that home to play the market, but this is essentially what is happening when you voluntarily retain a mortgage to invest. Risking both home and savings for the difference between 4% and 6% (or more on really risky investments) just doesn’t make sense to me long term.

h. Investment/financial planners and the like are inherently biased. They don’t make money when you pay off your mortgage. They make money when they manage your investments with money freed up by a mortgage. Take what they say with a grain of salt.

i. Emotions are naturally underrated by financial experts because they can’t be quantified. The feelings of independence, self-control, freedom, peace, security and accomplishment don’t have a line on any balance sheet. The same is true of vacations, friends, family or relationships of any kind. The value of these intangibles may be nothing on a balance sheet, but everything to a human being.

j. Finally, how many people are really going to leave a huge pile of money alone invested somewhere? If it’s there and accessible, a “need” will surely arise to absorb some or all of it.

STANDARD FINANCIAL ADVICE #2: Don’t lose your mortgage tax deduction!

Counterpoints:

a. It’s simply not worth much even under the best of circumstances. Unless you itemize and have enough deductions to overcome the standard deduction, there will be no benefit at all. Statistically, about half of American homeowners with a mortgage derive no benefit from the deduction whatsoever.

b. Even those who benefit from the mortgage interest deduction are still losing… big time. If I’m in the 33% tax bracket and pay $10,000 in mortgage interest, I’m NOT able to deduct $10,000 off my taxes. I simply don’t pay the 33% tax on that $10,000. Assuming we’ve already maxed out the standard $12,600 deduction through itemizing we might save $3,300 in taxes but we’d have burned an extra $6,700 in interest to “save” that $3,300. I think I’d rather just give $10,000 to the charity of my choice and “save” the $3,300 that way.

STANDARD FINANCIAL ADVICE #3: You should pay off higher rate debt like credit cards, student loans and auto loans first.

Counterpoints: NONE

STANDARD FINANCIAL ADVICE #4: You should fully fund your retirement before worrying about paying off your mortgage

Counterpoint: This only makes sense if you have a tolerance for risk and are fairly certain to average more on your retirement than you’re paying in mortgage interest. Of course, it also helps if you don’t happen to retire during a market downturn.

STANDARD FINANCIAL ADVICE #5: You shouldn’t pay off your mortgage unless you have savings for a rainy day

Counterpoints: NONE. Six months to a year of accessible savings are recommended by most advisers and that makes perfect sense to me.

STANDARD FINANCIAL ADVICE #6: You shouldn’t pay off your mortgage unless you’ve maxed out your employers 401K match.

Counterpoints: NONE. If your employer is matching your retirement 1-1, 50% or anything over your mortgage rate, it wouldn’t be smart to throw away GUARANTEED extra money.

STANDARD FINANCIAL ADVICE #7: Don’t pay off your mortgage if you won’t have lots of liquid funds left over for an amazing opportunity or to help yourself or someone in need with an emergency.

Counterpoint: This one was a valid concern for us. It was overcome by simply opening a home equity line of credit. If we find that we need a large amount of money for some unforeseen reason, the line is instantly available. The difference is that we aren’t paying any interest on it until AFTER we actually need it (if we ever do) and then only to the exact amount deemed necessary. Also we would have a smaller payment that will match the amount borrowed instead of the same large fixed payment no matter what the balance remaining was.

STANDARD FINANCIAL ADVICE #8: If you’re going to inherit later in life anyway, don’t bother paying off your mortgage.

Counterpoint: First off, waiting for an inheritance always rubbed me the wrong way. You’re basically waiting for someone to die. I love the idea of an unearned windfall as much as the next guy, but banking on an inheritance seems both morbid and risky. Promised or implied inheritances don’t always come through. If you have your eye on Aunt Mildred’s millions, you can be assured someone else does too… for example, your new uncle Joe and his kids. Yeah, that happens a lot. Like, if I had a dollar for every time that happened I’d have been able to pay off my mortgage a long time ago. Even if someone doesn’t swoop in and steal “your” inheritance, sometimes people just change their will, end up using more than expected or take a look at you and decide they’d rather give it to charity.

STANDARD FINANCIAL ADVICE #9: Putting your “eggs” in one basket by paying off your home exposes you to unnecessary risk if you lose your home in a disaster.

Counterpoint: As stated above, ALL your eggs shouldn’t be in one basket. You should have other savings and retirement. As to risk, your home should remain insured. Certainly you can still lose your home to some uninsured disaster. If your plan is to destroy your credit and walk away from your loan obligation at the first sign of trouble then this is a valid point, otherwise, as with any asset, it’s probably better to own than to lease or finance.

NON STANDARD FINANCIAL ADVICE #1: Don’t pay off your mortgage because you won’t be able to have any kind of a life.

Counterpoint: Sacrifices must be made to accomplish anything worthwhile, but you shouldn’t be miserable. I felt like we still managed to have a good time while paying our mortgage off early. Vacations and entertainment can be scaled back but if elimination of all entertainment and working around the clock is required, I would just assume keep the mortgage longer and have some kind of a life. This is basically what we chose. I’m sure we could have paid of the mortgage long ago if more drastic cuts were made earlier.

NON STANDARD FINANCIAL ADVICE #1: Don’t pay off your mortgage if it means you won’t give anything to charity.

Counterpoint: NONE. This is very counter intuitive, but for us the more freely we gave to others the quicker we were able to pay off our mortgage. It was miraculous how quickly it happened actually. Life isn’t perfect and results may vary but I believe we are lifted up in many ways as we contribute to charity generously. Some may call it karma, luck, or coincidence, but I wouldn’t call it any of those. I believe that when you learn to give for the right reasons you receive exactly what you need…which may or may not be anything monetary. There are many ways to give back. In addition to my church, I donate to or am involved with the following organizations and would recommend them:

Special Operations Warrior Foundation – Education fund for surviving children of those heroes lost in the line of duty

Semper Fi Fund – Immediate financial assistance and lifetime support to post 9/11 wounded members of the military

Concerns of Police Survivors – Fund for surviving family members of fallen police officers

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America – Mentoring program for children in need in which you can actively participate, not just write a check.

We will never be out of “debt” to those who have sacrificed so much for us, but giving often of your extra time and resources will help you feel better than just about anything else. Find an efficient charity of you choice at the following link: https://www.charitynavigator.org/

Final Thoughts

According to reports, (as of writing) 29.3% of homes nationwide are owned outright so it is hardly uncommon, but it seems to be a big secret. Of the hundreds of people I know, I’m aware of less than a dozen who own their homes outright. Clearly there must be many more. Once upon a time it was considered a worthy goal to eliminate debt and to celebrate it. Now it appears to be considered gauche or even stupid. I think that’s a shame. Ostentatious wealth in the form of expensive toys, vehicles, homes and vacations are clearly socially acceptable, so why not the old-fashioned mortgage burning party? When I was younger I concluded that EVERYONE was in debt because I couldn’t conceive of paying cash for something as expensive as a car, boat or home. For a long time, this served as justification for my own significant debt. It wasn’t until I became aware of real people that I knew who did in fact escape debt entirely that it became a goal. It’s nice that through personalities like Dave Ramsey, Suze Orman and others, it is becoming more socially acceptable to celebrate a debt free life. I think our government is in enormous and unsustainable debt and according to reports, much of the population is too. It seems unlikely that a badly indebted population will demand change from their government. As Gandhi said “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”. I would love to hear about more people escaping or avoiding debt completely. I would hope it can lead to change on a national level. Just last year, interest alone on the national debt was 433 BILLION dollars. (https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm) It is one of the largest budget items! I can think of much better uses for that money… like returning it to the taxpayers who earned it and freeing our children from the shackles of crushing, freedom-sapping debt.

Have you paid off all your debt? Would you have done anything differently? Any other points to make? Please comment below:

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