Blueprint Financial Advisors, LLC

I spend much of my time thinking about wealth, money, opportunity, legacy, etc. Yes, it is my job to do those things. But I mean, more abstractly, as well. I think it is interesting and heartbreaking at the same time...(plus I am sure I am thinking about this more since my kiddos are now 9 and has me thinking about my childhood).

I grew up in a small, rural, logging community in Southern Oregon. My life then is much different than my life now. However, that experience has deeply influenced my thoughts on hard work, success, the urban/rural divide, etc. It has also had a profound impact on my view of government/federal support as it relates to kids. To be clear, I am not one of those "I made it because I worked hard" type of folks, I have major disdain for the Horatio Alger myth. I wouldn't be where I was without major financial support in college (and a lot of luck). In this article below (I'll add some charts from it in the comments section as well), it lays out that the best indicator that a child will be successful in life is if they have successful parents. Pretty simple, right? Does this mean that folks with higher incomes "deserve" it, absolutely not. I guess what I am saying is that the government should be there to level the playing field more than they are. Most of that support would/should go to rural areas, which is ironic, because they usually have the whole "don't tread of me" vibe as of late, but they need it.

The data is clear, the economic divide is getting worse and we are asleep at the wheel hiding behind strange beliefs like "having a bad credit score makes you a bad person". No, it doesn't, it just means you don't have any money. Or that if you have a high income you must've deserved that. Nope, I know plenty of people (I see you teachers, social workers, etc), who bust their asses and deserve much more than they get.

Maybe more soon on this...

Thanks for coming to my Talks with Ted :) (sue me!) hahaha

Raj Chetty in 14 charts: Big findings on opportunity and mobility we should all know The presidential debate accomplished more for Harris than it did for Trump The presidential debate accomplished more for Harris than it did for Trump

A great take (and short article) on the current inflationary environment:

"The CPI’s 12-month rate of change is inflated by big jumps in June and October of 2021 and March of this year. As a result, the 12-month rate of change will remain high regardless of what happens to the CPI over the next couple of months. One illustration of this: even if the CPI had remained unchanged from March to April, the headline number for April would still have been 7.9%.

This puts the current discussion about inflation in an entirely different light. The month-to-month inflation rate doesn’t have to get any lower than it was in April in order for the CPI’s 12-month rate of change to fall to 4.1% — once the past year’s big spikes in inflation drop out of the trailing 12-month period.

Until those spikes drop out of the calculation, the headline inflation number will remain stubbornly high — not because the Federal Reserve is doing a bad job-fighting inflation but because of simple arithmetic."

Inflation may be a lot lower than anyone thinks — even the Fed Focusing on the monthly rate of change in the CPI shows prices falling from March to April.