When Associate Justice to the Supreme Court Clarence Thomas first encountered Thomas Sowell’s work as a young law student, he rejected it.
Years later, at a pivotal moment in his life, he picked up Race and Economics. This time, the argument inside it quietly rearranges everything he thought he knew. Justice Thomas describes it as finding “water in the desert.”
That discovery would change the course of his thinking and begin a friendship with Sowell that lasted more than four-decades.
Opinion: Every day, Oklahomans make careful decisions about how to save. A financial adviser in Edmond sits across from a wheat farmer outside Enid and maps out a retirement plan. A CPA in Marlow helps a small business owner like me look for a smart way to set aside extra income after covering payroll, expenses, and taxes.
More often than not, mutual funds are part the answer: they’re accessible, diversified, and don’t require the time or capital to pick individual stocks. What most of these savers don’t know is that the tax code is quietly working against them.
As I study the attitudes, perspectives, and philosophies of successful people throughout history, I am struck by how many of them share common elements in their worldviews. One characteristic of these outstanding people is their tendency to think, act, and live in the current moment.
Without being mindful of your focus, it is easy to dwell on the past or fret about the future.
Yesterday is a cancelled check, tomorrow is a promissory note, but today is cash—so we need to spend it wisely.
Analysis: In 1905, Oklahoma’s first major oil boom erupted on a small farm south of Tulsa. Within two years, the field had grown from 80 acres to 8,000 acres, making Oklahoma the nation’s leading oil producer. Today, it takes four-and-a-half years on average for a company to obtain a permit to build infrastructure in the U.S. That is not caution — it is a broken system, and it is costing Oklahoma.
When America celebrated its 250th birthday this weekend, I expected to feel the same exhilaration I experienced during the Bicentennial in 1976.
Instead, I felt something else.
Fifty years ago, I was a law student in Boston. I stood on the Esplanade with my mother listening to Arthur Fiedler conduct the Boston Pops as fireworks illuminated the Charles River. Like millions of Americans, I believed I was witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of our nation.
