House of Eratosthenes

One of the most effective bumper-sticker slogans that spiritual leaders have used to encourage their flock to re-think their dedication to the faith, has been some variation of “If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” It’s a good question in that it directly targets the fair-weather friends. Christ, like anyone else unfairly persecuted in the times in which they lived, would not have too much use for fair-weather friends. It’s not too hard to find some New Testament scripture that confirms this.

I have long been wondering the same thing about elevating the next generation, and giving that next generation the tools it needs to elevate itself, to a platform of independence and prosperity. There, too, we need a test of fair-weather friendship. I’ve noticed quite a few people are pretty good at slinging around the stock phrases. “Get him the help he needs to succeed in school and life” and so forth. My all-time favorite has to be “We don’t teach them what to think, we teach them how to think” — so seldom does it turn out to be true.

Old people fear outliving their savings. Now that I’m fast approaching the stage of life where one becomes an old person, or can at least start to see the “old person zone” looming on the horizon, I notice what life has to teach old people, as much as what old people have to teach others about life. I’ve noticed life is teaching them they didn’t save enough. There were all sorts of problematic expenses they didn’t anticipate, and in some cases, brand new expenses they did not predict. The young, the old, the in-betweens, seems everybody’s problem is not enough cash. How come the old people don’t say something like: It’s far better to overestimate your expenses than to underestimate them?

Or: Find a livelihood in which the money comes from helping others, work your ass to the bone at it, see to it you pay yourself first?

What’s the measure of dedication? If we were all arrested for making our kids more prosperous, or for giving our kids the tools and skills they need to become prosperous, would there be enough evidence to convict us? There would? Are you so sure?

You may need to read John Hawkins’ latest for a reality check. We actually do quite a lot to keep kids poor, and over their entire lives.

The 7 Keys To Trapping As Many Americans As Possible In Poverty

Keeping Americans poor in a prosperous country like America is not as easy as you think. After all, this is the “land of opportunity.” Legal immigrants pay tens of thousands of dollars and wait years for the opportunity to come legally and illegal immigrants often risk their lives just so they can get here and do menial work. This is the country that made Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and even OPRAH into billionaires and it’s a nation where you can have everything from hoverboards to medicine for your pet delivered right to your door. So when there’s so much wealth and opulence everywhere, how do you lock Americans out of that success?

No matter what you do, there will always be a few poor people around, but to really maximize those numbers there are very specific government policies abetted by a few cultural attitudes that will make all the difference.

The seven pointers are: Keep taxes and regulations high, encourage dependency, encourage people to have babies out of wedlock, demonize success, screw up the education system, have massive immigration, and ratchet up expenses.

The babies-out-of-wedlock thing is a sticky problem for me, since I’m guilty. For others, I’d say the biggest problem is the “screw up the education system” because it is the most subjective. To follow the conversation along, you have to have a little bit of what they used to call an attention-span…which is something I notice lately is going out of fashion, and maybe that’s an eighth point that could go on this list. Within my own history of making money, not that I’ve made a lot, but it’s been a consistent observation of mine that the money follows the paying-of-attention. This new generation, which I sometimes call a “Not a Lifeguard Worth a Damn” generation, concerns me most of all because so few within it possess the ability to just stop, watch a designated target, and invoke some sort of plan when the target changes state in any way. It’s way too far above them. Or beneath them.

I’m generalizing, of course. There are exceptions.

But the education thing — the worst offenders are going to say, of course education is critical and that’s why we started this curriculum that…blah blah blah. And if you happen to notice, some of this blah-blah-blah is only weakly connected to, or isn’t connected in any way to, the actual making of money, you get back this half-truth litany. Something about how, the point to it is not to make money, necessarily, but to broaden horizons or some such.

There is truth in this.

But, it just brings us back to my original question. If the crime is one of elevating the next generation to prosperity, and we’re arrested for it, is there enough evidence to convict?

In other words, where is the level of commitment? The spirit of dedication? Same thing people asked me all the time when I didn’t marry somebody…which turned out, when all was said & done, to be the correct decision. But in this case, we don’t need to worry about the correct decision. Life is being quite consistent, with regard to all sorts of age brackets, womb to tomb, in its repeated teachings and it doesn’t very much care if we learn it or not: Not enough savings. Not enough funding. Not enough margin for error. You forgot about how to pay for X.

Before free trade was possible among the hoi polloi, the way you elevated your stature was to capture territory, which usually involved killing. Or you could take the direct approach, and bonk someone over the head for the money in his purse. Capitalism gives us a way to realize our fortunes, change the future for our descendants for the better, while helping others. What a wonderful gift the ages have given us, by unfolding this relatively young chapter in human development during this lifetime. Do we have sufficient appreciation for it?

Well, if we were arrested for & charged with the crime of showing proper appreciation for it, would there be enough evidence to convict?

It is a good article and so true. My husband owns riverfront property in WA state.This is a donation land claim, which means that people have lived there since pre-statehood. My husband would like to replace the run down mobile home, set up a small boat rental business, maybe have a houseboat to rent out. We just had an expensive lawsuit with the state DNR. They don’t want us to have a business. They don’t want us to even have a dock there, although the state law says we can. They would love to take the property away from us, but somehow we managed to keep it. We can’t replace the run down mobile, as we get told conflicting information at the city. We can’t build because it’s in a flood zone. We can,, of course, pay taxes on it.

And, in their usual charming way, all these bureaucrats treat us like criminals. Yes, we could have a way to make a little money for our retirement and have a comfortable house to live in there. Instead, we will have to rent out the nice house we own in the suburbs and live in the run down trailer. I feel certain they will find a way to tax us out of the rental money too.
- teripittman | 11/09/2015 @ 18:08

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If We Were All Arrested For Making Our Kids More Prosperous…Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015

If We Were All Arrested For Making Our Kids More Prosperous…
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015