Retirement. Most Americans are either ignoring this fact of life hoping it will go away, or facing its eventuality with fear and trembling. Based on a year's worth of research, I am certain that 9 out of 10 people reading this blog fit that category. There is plenty of available data showing the...
I have been thinking a lot about my mortality lately. No, I don’t have any premonitions, but Julia and I just updated our Revocable Living Trust and it always makes me think about my life, my relationships, and whether or not I am doing all I can for my family. My...
This post is a reprint of the November 5 ,2014 article from the Intercollegiate Review. Twenty-five years ago last week, the Berlin Wall fell. In retrospect, what event fails to suggest a certain inevitability about itself, conveying the sense that because it happened it had to have happened? Twenty-five years ago this week,...
In April of this year, John Stossel wrote a thought provoking article about the ability of never quitting as being the reason America has been successful. I quote him here: In the USA, it's OK to fail and fail and try again. In most of Europe and much of the world, the attitude is:...
Historically, most American institutions of higher education struggled to fund themselves. Non-profit institutions did not generally have mechanisms for generating revenue. Thus they relied on tuition, donations, and an endowment. Harvard, America's first school, suffered this same fate. In 1636, without any endowment (the gift from John Harvard, the school's name...
CLICK HERE TO READ PART ONE CLICK HERE TO READ PART TWO Before we talk about how to increase personal financial autonomy, let's be very clear on the current state of financial autonomy for the vast majority of Americans today. A few Google searches produce a frightening collection of articles, books, newscasts, editorials,...
CLICK HERE TO READ PART ONE I mentioned in Part One that there can be no political autonomy without financial autonomy. I think the collapsing of American political autonomy is clear to the most casual observer, but what exactly is financial autonomy? If I have a job and can pay my rent...
Click Here For Part Two I’ve been angry for a while now. When I turned 50, I took pause and reflected on my life, presuming that I was at the halfway point (yes, I intend to live to see 100). I thought about my childhood in the 60’s and early 70’s. I reminisced my...
This post is one that will separate our readers into two groups. You will either read it and say, “wow, that makes so much sense, I see why Monticello College has a farm and teaches the manual arts,” or you will read a part of it, become bored, and drift...
Let me take a couple of lines to bring you current with Monticello College news. My daughter Amber and I spent the greater part of 5 months (Jan-May 2014) in California teaching a program called Personal Financial Autonomy (the Utah segment begins in September). We met with great success and taught over 400 students in...
