Difficult Question, Correct Answer?

A colleague asked a question recently. I did think about my answer before giving it. The answer was a bit longer and nebulous than I think they expected. And I have been rehashing the answer for the last two days.

This person is married, in their early 30's with two children. The question was, "How would you invest for your future including college for your children?"

A few times I mentioned that I was well past 30 and most of my children are out of the house and that influenced my answers. I also mentioned that we instilled in our children that college was their responsibility for the most part. Good grades, scholarships, etc. should be the bulk of of their college payments. If they live at home, we certainly would help with food, shelter and other things as we could.

I mentioned some of my view of the world and how that directs my choices and purchases. That I am sure was different than their expectations.

So how would you answer the question?

Busy as a Bee

Many Random Thoughts to Come

For reasons I cannot fathom entirely, the end of a school year speeds up from its already frantic pace. It may be my age, or the number of meetings that get increased over the norm, or the end of baseball that gets closer to the end of school, or the looking for a summer job and planning for the summer, or any number of other reasons, but this time of year is fraught with busy-ness.

Brad and Laurel getting married soon. Sam taking his trip. Family in town from out of state. It's going to be a FUN summer for sure.

I've reached a peace and resolve about a few issues at school and will write in the future about them. That is a good thing.

The garden is mostly in, though that is Maureen's efforts not so much mine. Remember baseball is still in season. That will be nice to come to an end, though always sad in its own way.

The Monarchs did get into the playoffs for the first time in years. Even a 4 seed out of 12. Work does pay off. Now let's just see which team shows up to play.

I'm looking forward to the garden this summer, and I think Maureen is looking forward tome helping also.

I have a newish summer job this year. I will again be working for the Migrant program with high school students like last summer, but this time elementary students as well. Best ofall is working with Margie.

Must be off to torment the youth of Exeter. Have a great week.

Been a Long Time. . .

For many things. Above is the team waiting for me to come talk to them after a game. And not just an ordinary game. This is our last home league game of the year. And we won for the first time in league this year. Yeah, 1-10 with one game to go. Sounds like a bad year, but that's only the half of it.

In our three tournaments we have finished 2nd all three times. Meaning we played in the championship game all three times. We lost all three, but we still were playing when other were not.

The interesting story behind the picture above is unseen. The other coaches figured I wouldn't talk much after this semi-historic win. I guess I did though. After a bit one coach had to leave and handed a stop watch to a player. I then realized I was being timed.

5:38. I guess I do get long winded sometimes.

Happy Mother's Day!

To the mothers in my life, my wish is you get what you need today, and many of your wants also.

Thank you!

More Wisdom

I like Ben Stein. Have for many years for many reasons. The following is another.

Here is an article from 2006 regarding taxes and who pays what percentage. First the excerpt that got me looking deeper.

Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.

Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all.

It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”

Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare.

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Out of the Mouths of Babes.

Yesterday Wilson asked to go for a drive. Sam, Maureen and I went along and it was a great trip up Yokohl Valley. Here are some pictures Maureen took.

This is an area I discovered and explored as a teenager. Maybe it had something to do with a newly acquired driver's licence and cheap gas. Yesterday I was reminded of the beauty and Wilson's comment, "Wow, I never realized this was so close," gave me a moment of shame for not showing this to the children.

Add it to the list of this I forgot, or was too busy, to show you.

A picture of some tee shirt art from Oregon.

We have spent the better part of the last few days with the kids or in the garden. Maureen has many plants to plant and I have some time off of baseball to help. Her post on the Sharecropper blog displays some of that work. I have to say it was cool to be in the garden with her. Wish I would do that more often.

Being away from the baseball field is strangely calming. I do have to water the grass, soon. We had a good run during the Easter tournament, and though the ending was painful, the players learned something about themselves that will make them stronger. Hopefully it will carry over for the last few games and maybe into the playoffs.

Having all of the kids home is fun. Scrabble last night after fried chicken; one of our past routines. Watching some of their new favorite shows. The witty repartee between siblings. The examples of why we are a family.

Yet it is also a prelude of them not being here. Within a week two will be off to their abodes, and one of those two will soon be overseas.

And a new adventure awaits us.