Bob and Debbie Conroy - Enjoying the Journey Together!

The size of the universe is limited only by our ability to perceive it.  A coat of paint can hide an interesting story or two. The hypotenuse of a right triangle is occasionally very handy. Your green light is an impediment to others. Multiplying two imaginary numbers together always results in a negative number and that is fine by me. A word can convey complex concepts but it is made up of letters that individually mean nothing. Debt is a tool only used by a fool. In measuring a bargain it is not what you “saved” but what you spent that counts. Sometimes motorcycle maintenance is just motorcycle maintenance.  The antidote to a riddle is earned knowledge.  If only the good die young there are a lot of bad people in Florida. It is easy to adjust a goal to match the results – politicians do it all the time. It is the exceptions that define a process.

Over the last few weeks, I have been across parts of Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota. In all three states, there were many fires where large piles of trees and brush were burning.  The last time I saw this much clearing was when I first moved to Iowa from Michigan in 1979.  Back then farmers were encouraged by federal agencies to grow fence row to fence row.  Easy credit and low interest rates drove up the cost of farmland and many farmers leveraged their operations to acquire more acreage. This was followed by a bust that lasted over a decade and many families lost their farms to foreclosure. Many of these farms had been in the same family for over 100 years.  I served on the Warren County Board of Human Services in the 1980s. I saw firsthand the extent of the suffering that the boom and bust inflicted on so many people.  There is a story in the D M Register that some Iowa farmland sold at auction for over $26,000 an acre last week.  Maybe the bonfires...

Student loans have become a hot political issue. That is too bad because the true solution to the issue will be delayed. There are a few simple principles in play here. First Issue: Supply and Demand. With the massive government subsidization of higher education, it is no wonder that college tuition is out of control. This subsidy has created an increasing demand curve against a relatively fixed supply so of course the cost of tuition has outstripped inflation for many years. Second Issue: Return on Investment. The conventional “wisdom” that “everyone should be able to get a college degree” has left us with millions of new graduates with thousands in debt because their schools misled them into thinking that getting a job with a unique degree would be an easy path to success. Third Issue: Caveat Emptor. Parents are not teaching their children fiscal responsibility! Their children are targeted by predatory financial institutions for credit cards and assume debts for material things b...