Innovative Thinking

I've always thought of inventors as people who create things, but I'm starting to understand how ideas can change concepts of things that aren't tangible -- held in our hands.

Two recent innovations that wowed me, I heard about on NPR -- where else?

One new idea is the coffee shop where customers pay for their time rather than their coffee or tea. What a great idea for people who go and hang out forever.

According to the story on NPR, they pay for the minutes that they are sitting in the coffee shop, maybe using the internet, maybe using electricity. The coffee and tea, along with cookies, are free. The Clockface Cafe in Moscow, Russia was started by a 28-year-old entrepreneur who figured people weren't that interested in the coffee but in a place to gather with others and get work done. It costs a little less than $4 for the first hour and about half that for each hour afterward. 

The only thing that worries me is whether I'd be able to get my specialty coffee. Maybe they have a barista who will make me a mocha and I get a free hour of table time since I pay big bucks for my mocha. I think this idea could work and could solve problems for small shops who don't know how to get hanger-ons to vacate tables.  

Another idea which really bowled me over was a new way to pay for college. With two kids in college and another one racing there quickly, this story on NPR really caught my attention. Some students at UC Riverside proposed that students not pay tuition up front. Instead, they attend college for free and once they graduate, they pay the college 5 percent of their income for 20 years to cover the cost of that free college.

I love this idea. I don't see any drawbacks. It might get a little complicated if people drop out or transfer colleges, but since my kids' college tuition was over $90,000 this year, I'm thinking it might be a workable alternative.

Repaying the college only 5 percent is not enough to discourage people from getting good jobs. They won't feel like they're working to see their paychecks disappear in college costs.

I'd love to see both of these ideas incorporated in my life.

How bout you?

Do you have any ideas that would make life better?

Paying for College

Of course it happened. Spencer fell in love with a college and it happens to be the most expensive. Not the most expensive overall, but the most expensive as far as what they've offered us.
Paying for college is complicated. For a middle class family like us, a public university is going to give us no financial aid help, but the students can take out about $6000 in loans each year. They don't have to start paying until they are finished with college.
So here in Ohio, the public universities cost about $20,000 per year with tuition, room and board. Take off the $6000 loan and we have to pay $14,000 per year for a public university.
The private universities cost a lot more on paper. The two that Spencer is looking at cost $47,000 or $43,000 per year. (Grace's private university is up to $54,000.) They offer Dean Scholarships and President Grants, reducing the cost. But they also take into account the $6000 loan. So our total cost with one of the colleges is $18,000 and with Spencer's favorite it is $19,999.50. Could they just round it up to $20,000? I mean, really!
Sigh.
Maybe, if we scrimped a lot, we could pay $20,000 a year for Spencer's college. But, we already have another kid in college and we don't get to cut her off to pay for Spencer's college.
There's a form families fill out -- FAFSA. It's the government Financial Aid form. The form takes into account how much we make and how many kids we have in college.
The form says that we should pay $9053 per year for Grace and $8000 for Spencer. But colleges use that as a guide. They're happy to suggest we take out a parent loan for the remainder.
The problem with the parent loan, of course, is that the parents have to start paying on that right away, so parents are trying to pay for their kids' college plus trying to stay on top of their loan payments, plus trying to live life with the other kid at home.
I'm already working two jobs, so it gets a little discouraging.
Maybe I'll follow Stephen Colbert's example and start a SuperPac -- "Creating a better tomorrow, tomorrow for Spencer" so that I can collect money to pay for his college.

Money Changes Everything

I've been thinking about money recently, not just because of the "Didya Ever" post that asked if I had enough money to be satisfied. Truly, it would take so little bonus money to satisfy me.
I started thinking about money when Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report explained that in the United States, one percent of the people control one-third of the wealth. And 10 percent of the people earn three-fourths of the wealth. Wow. That means the other 90 percent of us share one-fourth of the wealth.
The wealth that the top 10 percent has is so beyond my imagination.
When I fantasize about a lottery win, I think I might be able to afford a Honda Pilot to replace my dearly departed one. (This is not a slam at you, Grace. I just love that car.)
One of my fantasies was that if I won the lotto, I could call the local NPR station and stop the fund drive in the middle. "That's it. I'll cover the rest. Get back to programming," I would say.
I'd like to be able to pay for my children's college education without sweating over the checks. Currently, according to our Quicken report, our college payments take 22 percent of our income. That's with me working two jobs and Earl working overtime whenever he can. That's a much higher percentage than someone poor would have to pay, and those rich people, who make $500,000 a year or more might not even notice the monthly college payment.
Of course, I'd like to be able to visit Europe frequently too, so that would take some money.
Still, to live the life that I want, to be satisfied, it wouldn't take anywhere near the amount that the top 10 percent of our country control. I don't long for expensive jewels or flashy cars or pricey clothes.
Even my simple longings seem ridiculously selfish when I consider that some families live in squalor or don't have enough food to eat.
If I feel selfish wishing for college money, trips to Europe, NPR donations and a Honda Pilot, how must those top ten percent feel? Shouldn't they be shoveling their money to the poor to try to make things better for them?
The top ten percent are so far removed from the rest of us. Even those making half a million a year are millions below the top ten perecent. And I wonder why we allow so few people to control the resources in our country. I wonder why we don't protest like the people in Egypt and Tunisia.
Even stranger, I wonder how the media can convince the "middle class" people to keep voting for a government that maintains the status quo, low taxes for everyone. The lure of the American dream is what makes people support low taxes for the rich. "That could be me anyday," they think.
Maybe we all need to decide that it's true, we could become unspeakably wealthy because this is America, but maybe if we did become unspeakably wealthy,we wouldn't leave our morals behind.
Come on top 10 percent, pay higher taxes. Make our country a stronger and better place for everyone. We promise if we become rich and you become poor, that safety net will catch you too.