A weekly brief on Kansas — its strengths, its opportunities, and its future
The Plains LedgerA weekly 5-minute brief on how Kansas can build lasting wealth from the strengths it already has. Written by a Band 1 investment lawyer who advises the world's largest hedge funds, private equity, and venture capital firms, and appears regularly on BBC, CNN International, and GB News.
Recent Writing
Kansas is debating the cost of owning a home. It should also be debating the cost of buying one.
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“Too much of the property-tax debate still tries to fix the last line first.”
A judge has decided, more than once, how much your child’s education should cost. The real question isn’t whether Kansas spends enough. It’s who decides what “enough” means.
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“The Constitution is many things.
A spreadsheet isn’t one of them.”
Mississippi didn’t find a miracle cure. It chose one goal — and stuck to it. Kansas ranked 5th in fourth-grade reading in 2013. By 2024 it had fallen to 36th. The fix is available. The question is whether Kansas will choose it.
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“The ruler moved,
not the reading.”
Last week's essay asked where Kansas school money goes. This one asks why the bureaucracy grows every year, no matter who holds office — because removing a rule punishes whoever takes it and rewards no one.
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"Kansas education has grown
enormously over the last century.
Responsibility has become harder to find."
Kansas spends $18,324 per pupil — among the ten highest in the country. College readiness fell from 32% to 18%. The question is not whether Kansas spends enough. The question is where the money goes.
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"The teacher is the one whose pay fell
while the org charts grew."
Ty Masterson called Philip Sarnecki an angry elf and the clip ate the evening. Here's what the clip crowded out — and why a tissue offered to a rival tells you more about a candidate than any line he rehearsed.
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"A fragment held close to your face
blocks out everything behind it.
And there's never been more of it."
Agriculture made Kansas feed the world with fewer farmers. AI and remote work may do something analogous to cities. The forces that made leaving feel necessary for a century are weakening — and for the first time, Kansas has an opening.
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"For the first time in a very long time,
Kansas has an opening —
if it understands what is being offered
and chooses accordingly."
Kansas didn't suddenly become wasteful after COVID. It became older. The budget debate in Topeka is answering the wrong question — and the real answer has nothing to do with ideology.
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"The cheapest Medicaid reform
is a tax base
that does not leave."
Everybody wants artificial intelligence. Nobody wants the substation behind their house. There is a better argument Kansas is not making — and Wichita already has the industrial base to make it.
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"The server farms may go elsewhere.
The industrial base does not have to."
Governor Kelly vetoed a bill requiring a civics exam before graduation. She has a point about standards. But standards are not the same as outcomes — and the data on younger Americans and political violence is not reassuring.
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"We are calling politicians Hitler.
We are calling policies genocide.
Something is not working."
The STAR bond deal is law. The question is no longer whether it was the right bet — it is whether it will be managed like one. Gross numbers are for press releases. Net numbers are what pay the bonds.
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"Gross numbers are for press releases.
Net numbers are what pay the bonds."
A Supreme Court shift has quietly changed the redistricting landscape. Kansas already shows what a rational map looks like — the question is whether Congress will act.
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"A Republican state.
A clean map.
Nothing to hide."
A stadium is a trophy. A biotech economy is a legacy. Kansas is in danger of mistaking one for the other. The KC BioHub has a live federal opportunity — the only thing missing is the will to treat it like the Chiefs deal.
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"Trophies fade.
Economies compound."
Two great agricultural regions shaped by different choices — and what the divergence means for Kansas over the next decade.
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A structured SWOT analysis and state-by-state competitive comparison of Kansas's position in the advanced nuclear manufacturing economy.
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The financing structure that pays for the Chiefs stadium comes with risks not in the press releases. A plain-language breakdown of what Kansas has signed up for.
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The real question isn't whether to invest in the BioHub — it's what kind of economy Kansas is trying to build, and whether the pieces are being connected.
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Manhattan, Kansas sits at the center of the world's largest concentration of animal health companies. That's not a coincidence — and not capitalizing on it is an expensive mistake.
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Both the American and European models are failing farmers in different ways. There is a coherent middle position — and Kansas is positioned to lead it, if anyone is paying attention.
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About
I'm a fifth-generation Kansan — a homeowner and property taxpayer in Kansas, and the owner of family farmland in Missouri. By profession I'm a Managing Partner at a leading international law firm, advising hedge funds, private equity sponsors, venture capital firms, and institutional investors across fund formation, governance, transactions, and regulatory strategy. I'm ranked Band 1 by Chambers & Partners and recognised by Legal 500 as a Hall of Fame lawyer in investment funds.
The Plains Ledger exists because too much regional commentary treats growth as branding instead of structure. I'm interested in the mechanics — incentives, capital flows, governance, law, and the long-term decisions that compound over decades. But Kansas is also a place with a history, a culture, and a politics worth taking seriously on their own terms.
I write about how systems actually work — where political promises meet financial reality, and what it takes to build something that lasts. Kansas is the through-line. I appear regularly on the BBC, GB News, CNN International, and TalkTV. My writing has run in the Kansas City Star, the Wichita Eagle, the Topeka Capital-Journal, and the Iola Register.
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For readers who care how regions grow stronger over decades.
Read by investors, policymakers, and operators across Kansas, London, and New York.
Start with the flagship essay: Kansas Won the Chiefs. Now Win the Future. →
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