SO LADIES, YOU WANT TO START A BUSINESS? Then you need this book. Christy Wright is a member of the Dave Ramsey team and she's got a phenomenal new book out for women in business. It's called Business Boutique and I can't recommend it highly enough! Buy it here. She joins me today at 3 to discuss it.
I'M SO DISAPPOINTED IN YOU RIGHT NOW, COLORADO Because our favorite jelly bean flavor is black licorice. BLACK LICORICE??? This tastes like Satan's dirty socks. I'd rather have Rocky Mountain Oyster flavor jelly beans. BLECH.
DID YOU GET YOUR TAXES PAID YESTERDAY? And if you cursed and yelled, you have much to curse and yell about. This tax history lesson, complete with graphs and charts, will make you scream and yell even more. How did we get here? Blame politicians who figured out a way to pay political favors to their donors with the tax code. In 1913, the Form 1040 was four pages long total, and two of those pages were work pages. It's now 106 pages long, without the instructions. Check this graph out if you think the rich don't pay their "fair share".
AND THE CONFUSING TAX CODE IS HAVING THE DESIRED EFFECT: TOTAL CONFUSION Americans do not understand the tax code. At all. A new survey shows how pervasive the complete confusion really is. Why do I say this is the desired effect? Because how do you fight something that you completely don't understand? Exactly.
SAN FRANCISCO'S HIGHER MINIMUM WAGE IS ALREADY SHUTTING DOWN RESTAURANTS But don't take my word for it, it's a study from Harvard! They looked at restaurants in the Bay Area and found that lower rated restaurants, which seem to be closer to the margins to close, were closing at a measurable rate every time the minimum wage went up a dollar. And by the way, the wage is scheduled to jump two more times in the next two years. I hope your favorite restaurant is well reviewed on Yelp, or you may have to find a new one.
IF YOU VOTED FOR TRUMP, IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE PATHETIC AND THE MEDIA KNOWS IT This is a very interesting commentary about the media's treatment of Trump voters they claim to want to understand. It seems that as the media ventures into flyover country (did they get their passports and shots first?) they are only finding stories of desperation, uneducation and misery, because those are the only reasons someone could have gotten snookered by Trump, right? As someone from a small town that used to be about farming but is still a vibrant and growing community, I have a suggestion for these out of town reporters: live there for a while. Not as an outsider, but as one who gets your hair cut at the barber shop, who goes to church, and who eats at the diners that close at 2pm. Talk to people about their lives, not their politics, and you will begin to understand why people do what they do. Showing up and spreading condescension does nothing to that end.
GOOD NEWS CARNIVORES! BEEF PRICES ARE FALLING BACK TO EARTH. After beef prices skyrocketed last year due to shortages, many wondered when the delicious steak would be an affordable option again. Good news! It's now, as beef production is finally back up to demand and prices on ground beef and steaks are finally dropping. Just remember though, the US did away with the requirement that stores tell us where their beef comes from, so buyer beware. If it matters to you where your meat was grown, as the butcher at your local market to show you the box it arrived in. Just a thought.
IF YOU'VE GOT A BEST MAN SPEECH COMING UP, WATCH THIS I might have cried.
THE COLORADO LEGISLATURE CAN'T GET IT'S WORK DONE AND IT MAY COST US MORE MONEY Or so it's beginning to seem, as the House doesn't want to work on two orbital bills that will impact the final passage of the budget. If we have a special session, I propose that lawmakers pay the entire cost for it out of their own paychecks. Sounds like a plan to me!
A MAN DIES PEACEFULLY AFTER BEING LIED TO ABOUT TRUMP'S IMPEACHMENT As one who just went through the final days of a man I loved dearly, I would have told him anything to make him happy at the end. One ex-wife did that for her ex-husband when she told him Trump had been impeached. Which, of course, is not true, but it made him happy at the end. I see no harm in that. My father was overjoyed to see Hillary lose last November and we didn't even have to lie to him about that.
YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I DON'T LIKE ALEX JONES? BECAUSE HE'S LYING TO SOMEONE I do not like Infowars. Yes, they may get some stuff right occasionally about government corruption or some such other thing. But far too often, Alex Jones spouts off some nonsense, and then when his predictions fail utterly and completely, he conveniently says that because HE uncovered it, it got cancelled, therefore saving us all from gloom and doom. How nice for him. I think he's a hack. I think he preys on the paranoia that we all have a little bit of, and uses it like a weapon. And now the attorney in his custody battle says he is a "performance artist" just playing a role on the radio. Let me guess what he'll tell his fans when this is all over. It will sound something like this, "guys, I had to let them think this wasn't real to save my kids, but you know it really, really is" or some such garbage. Again, he's a hack.
THIS FATHER WINS AT DADDING 100% And I'm happy this story went viral. When little 6 year old Valerie had an accident and wet her pants at school, Dad made a quick adjustment to his own pants before he went to pick her up. It's adorable and you can read it here.
WANT TO GET A GREAT RETURN ON YOUR COLLEGE INVESTMENT? GO INTO ENGINEERING A survey of the 20 year Return On Investment (ROI) of colleges around the country found our own Colorado School of Mines to be a really good school. You know why? Because a vast majority of the degrees gained there are useful the moment you leave campus.
NOW STARBUCKS IS SELLING UNICORN DRINKS And I'm not even engaging in hyperbole, that's what they are called.
SIXTY TWO YEARS AGO TODAY WE LOST A GENIUS And here are some words of wisdom from the man himself, Albert Einstein.