A very fascinating conversation with diverse opinions well stated, the level of respect is refreshing. I do like the Beechtalk Bar Conversation comment. Spot on!

We do face a lot of uncertainty in our nation, we certainly have our share of challenges. For the moment I’m less concerned by Billionaires than I am Millionaires, specifically those Millionaires that have spent a lifetime in our government. I don’t want to violate the TOS so I’ll leave it there. The point is that money can corrupt, but money itself nor the possession of money is inherently evil, no matter the amount. We should focus on corrupt individuals and see they face justice.

I am a devote capitalist and the #1 thing I need to succeed is good people to work at the company.

to do this, we as a society need to spend the $ to invest in our children.

some of the best times for growth etc were the 60's to the 80's where the people of the country were trained and were raised in an environment with good experiences and where working hard would lead to a better life.

we need early childhood education especially as the first 4 years of a kids life are the most important.

needing to sit in front of a TV as a baby sitter because the adults do not have the time to pay attention, is a very bad way to grow a smart kid. interaction with many adults is the way you grow an intelligent kid.

as found by actual example programs, looking at the success of children raised in different environments,

According to Rob Grunewald, Economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis said that “for every $1 invested in Early Childhood Development there is a $16 return on society.” Dipesch Nasvaria, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, UW Madison says that “In the first few years of life, 700 new neural connections form in the brain per second. He also states that at 18 months vocabulary disparities can begin to appear.

by the age of 4 or so a child may have up to a 4X difference in their intellectual ability depending in the environment in which they are raised.

if we don't educate kids by the age of 5 they will always be at a disadvantage compared to those that grow up with a good environment.

If we want a successful society we need to spend the resources to make sure the work force as a whole is educated and this does not mean more college degrees as much as a good basic education and a good rich interaction with adults in their early years.

All of this requires a strong family structure. Absent same it is an uphil slog. Are there exceptions? For sure. But statistically, strong correlation with solid family. Without it, all the “investment” in the world is for naught.

I agree with child raising. I work at school with students, smart young men and women building airplanes. They come from all backgrounds and we're there to help them problem solve. I tell them that if they don’t take anything else away from this program, at least they won’t be shy about changing out a ceiling fan.
These kids understand that everyone needs a plumber or electrician, but very few need a pet psychologist.

I am a bit late to this party, and I only scanned some of the later posts, but I am hearing noises about the supper wealthy getting unfair advantages by corrupting the politicians. To this, I have a simple solution. Let's get rid of the politicians. If there are no politicians, there is no one to corrupt.

FIFY

Investing in children sounds great. Hard to be against it, like being against air or water, or mother's milk.

But...education is not education is not education. The US already spends more than anyone else on education, per student*. For all that, we finish below most industrial nations in most subjects. Our educational system has undergone a massive shift in its underlying premise and purpose in the last 100+ years, and in that time we have witnessed reduced performance. I perceive we have gone from trying to produce strong independent thinkers of maximized intellectual capability to rolling out indoctrinated drones.

And it's working. A cynical man might believe there is a political purpose here.

*IIRC one little country somewhere spends more than we do. Sort of the exception that proves the rule.

Don,

You make a good point about expenditures and results. I doubt there is any data, which isn't heavily manipulated, that could prove you wrong on that.

But, I'm not sure there is/was any conspiracy in terms of the shifting purpose as much as there has been opportunistic advantage taking. There has certainly been that.

I read a short autobiography of former house speaker Carl Albert "Little Giant" after he was kind enough to give me a copy which was fascinating not the least because of his description of his common school education. He attended local schools in Bug Tussle and McAlester, OK and took coursework that is too difficult for college work today. That was in the first part of the 20th century. I started elementary school behind in 1964 because all my classmates already knew how to read, write and do fairly simple arithmetic in the first grade. We were learning cursive handwriting and multiplication and division tables by then. I returned to the U.S. and was three years ahead of everyone else. Things have worsened in the last half century.

FIFY

And the problem is OPM provided by the Federal Government. Every major institution in the US is angling for their share of Other People's Money. This leads to enormous bureaucracies that lend nothing to the final product and become self-licking-ice-cream-cones. Eisenhower could have just as easily cautioned us against the medical-industrial complex or the education-industrial complex or the prison-industrial complex. All funded by OPM and all bloated bureaucracies fraught with corruption... certainly not at the doctor, teacher or police officer level... but at the level of those who would exploit them, seeing them as little more than cattle to justify their enormous "administrative" and "management" empires funded by OPM.

Why is the Federal Government so eager to hand out OPM? Because it enables them to control the "administrators" and "managers," and thereby control the very people who make this world go round (and have a tendency to get together and challenge empires). OPM is a weapon, and it's one whose wounds we inflict on ourselves.

To the original post….

PPP money drying up, higher interest rates on the near horizon…. how long and how quickly do airplane inventories build up?

I assume sooner than later. Always happens quicker than expected.

My prediction, within the year inventories are higher

I hope you are right, but I dont see it happening. Everyone seems to still be in a buying frenzy, at least around here.

Good for you for being a positive influence on kids Mark. Contributing to low academic achievement has been a little bit of blind trust that our kids were being taught what we believe they should be taught.

But there has been a tremendous "awakening" of parents that started in Virginia, when parents found out what their kids are really being taught; not the 3 R's, they revolted there, and are revolting all over the country, holding school boards accountable, despite the fact of concerned parents at school board meetings being investigated as "domestic terrorists" by this corrupted DOJ.

Oil over 90 dollars a barrel will increase the aircraft inventory. We are there now.
Controller is back over 88 pages.
I believe prices have peaked and will start coming down, especially twins.

I haven't paid much attention to "for sale" since buying the Baron.

Today I pulled up TAP and Controller to find the same twins I pursued months ago are still there. The one where the broker would not let me fly in the airplane until I signed a contract is most rewarding.

Someone I know called last night asking to let him me the 180.

There is a price I suppose. Guess we will see how the single market is doing.

Jg