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A few years ago I read that Pennsylvania (where I lived for my first 35 years) spent ~ $60K per year for each person in prison. For comparison, I just looked up the current stats and read that my current home state of NC spends ~ $63K per inmate. Then yesterday, I read that the…

Yesterday I ate some foods outside of my regular diet – almonds, cheese and salsa. They were delicious – but totally not worth it. Within hours I had a headache, felt bloated and had a case of awful garlic/onion breath. That night, I tossed and turned in bed with nightmares while my body dealt with…

After observing the executive orders, hiring freezes, budget freezes and shutdowns from President Trump and Elon Musk over the past two weeks, one thing has become crystal clear to me. Neither one give two shits about poor and working class people. You don’t put large numbers of people’s jobs in limbo with no notice if…

Trump’s new tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada go into effect today. He’s also promised there will be more new tariffs on European and Asian countries. When questioned repeatedly, he finally acknowledged that, “We may have in the short term, a little pain, and people understand that…” Several different analyses estimate these tariffs would cost…

This week, we finally came out of the frigid polar vortex that had plagued us for more than week. Our afternoon temperatures hit the 40s then the 50s and finally even reached the 60s yesterday. With the clear blue skies and warm sunshine, it was fantastic. As I was walking my dogs through the neighborhood…

Many times, I’ll sit down at my laptop and write a post full of fury and frustration. My readers, fortunately, are spared from ever seeing these posts because I don’t publish them. After I’ve written a rant, I’ll usually save it as a draft and reread it the next day. 95% of the time, my…

While I used to like the idea of free college, the more I think about it, the less I agree with it. First, nothing is free. If the US was to provide free college tuition, then we would be paying for this with taxes. Second, I’ve come to realize that college, for many students, is…

I have been reading “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman. In it, he presents numerous studies, theories and examples of how people make decisions, predictions and analyses based on irrational reasoning. He writes about biases, sunk cost fallacies, poor risk assessment, probability miscalculations and other factors that weigh into people’s predictions for the future….

Scott Galloway frequently talks about three areas in life: He says that financial independence gives you the freedom to eliminate the “shoulds”. I completely agree. Being retired has eliminated all of the work related shoulds that I hated doing: The truth is, I started cutting back on all of these even while employed because I…

My predictions concerning the 2024 presidential election were a bit off. I could parse my post and point out where I was correct – or partially correct – while glossing over where I was wrong. But I won’t. I’m bad at predicting the future and don’t deny it. I’m much better at predicting the past…