Why Cashflow Matters?

 Lets say you line up a thousand business operations, and you ask them....how much cash is flowing through their business, and you reach a magic number of 'X'.

Weeks, months and years pass. 

Now you assemble the thousand business operations and ask about 'X', and it's just not the same as it was twenty to thirty years ago.

Fewer trips, fewer vacations, fewer boats sold, fewer motorcycles, fewer quad-bikes, fewer couches, fewer renovations, fewer second vacation residences, fewer 'toys'.  

What you start to notice...back in the 1990s as college debt started up....people found themselves in a dilemma and they couldn't get the 'toys'.  

Same issue.....1990s....credit debt creeped up and while they made up for the college debt situation by having plenty of card-cash.....they eventually reached a point where the credit cards were maxed out.  At this point, they were paying $700 a month....to just keep the debt contained.  If they wanted to ease the credit card downwards....they needed to make a $1000 payment month, and that kept 'toys' to a minimum.

The guys who avoided college debt and credit card debt?  They survived, and for the most part....they kept buying 'toys' and keeping the economy appearing 'safe' and secure.  It was the wrong way of looking at it....but hey....that's life. 

So presently, with Covid, and serious Fed use of free-money.....are we in a cash-flow mess?  More or less.

It's presently reached the point where some banks don't even want to do business with small business operators....because there's simply not enough business to pay for the services or expectations of the bank.

So you might turn at this point and suggest something stupid....like let's pay off the $80k college debt of these foolish folks.  Where would the $80k of rescue money come from?  Well....printed cash from the Fed....of course.

Getting deeper into pit? More or less. 

Facebook Story

 Facebook's Oversight Board decided today....that Donald Trump would not get his account back.  

So the clock starts ticking.  20 January 2025 isn't that far away.

If events occur where Donald Trump runs again and happens to win....he'll walk in at noon on the 20th, and probably one of the top dozen things of interest will be to make life for Facebook miserable for the next six months.

I don't call Facebook's decision brilliant or stupid....it's just that if you make yourself into a target....you deserve most everything you get.

Dimwit Math Agenda

 There's a piece off Reason.com which I would encourage people to read.  The topic?  The state of California is working on a program for K-12 students....to be harnessed and limited on math advancement.  In simple terms....if you had 25 kids out of a hundred who had pretty good math skills by the end of the 3rd grade.....you'd typically see them by the sixth grade....getting into more competitive math classes and prepare them for college.  Under this California agenda....you'd try hard to hold everyone back and try to invent a equal system where no one really advances.

Crap?  More or less.

You'd end up with gifted kids sitting there in the 8th or 9th grade....more than capable of handling Algebra and geometry.  Then you just keep leading them in a circle....never advancing....never getting more insight on math problems.  

The reality of this landscape....for the past hundred years?  I would suggest that a quarter of all kids are very capable of taking on intense math, science and reasoning situations by age thirteen.  I'd also suggest that maybe a quarter of all kids are dismally prepared for anything of a challenge at age thirteen....suggesting that they marginally read at the 6th grade level, and are already working hard to be a burger-flipper at age thirteen.

If I were a parent in this mess?  I'd either remove the kid entirely from the school (home-schooling or private school) or I'd have the kid signed up to a program (three afternoons a week) where they leave the school and get 60 minutes of advanced math each afternoon.  By the 11th grade, I'd advance it to five afternoons a week.

As for this being accepted?  Well....ask yourself....if math is such a problem...wouldn't science become a problem, then history/geography, and finally grammar/literature?  Why bother running schools beyond the 9th grade then?  Just graduate them and get to the burger-flipper job as quickly as possible.  

In fact, I might even ask myself....why bother hiring up teachers with bachelor degrees.....I can run these programs with people who have one year of community college and just slant everything to get a burger-flipper kid out into the real world as quick as possible.