#neverliberal #nevermarxist
I won't say who, but someone I've known for decades took advice from someone he's known for decades, a guy with a track record of failures, from money to business, including the 70, 80s pyramid schemes, marriage and every fad/scheme that hits, this guy thought he was in on it early enough to get rich, yeah....he's still broke.Yet the other guy that knows of his failures listened to him, bought a shitload of foreign currency, and is still convinced that any day now, it will be reevaluated and he'll magically become rich, without ever having had to do any research on investment on his own.Oh, and he was certain when he bought it, that he was some how one of the lucky few to get in on the tail end of the long ass wait all "Those other fools" had been sitting on for so long, that by some lucky chance of leaked info. he bought at the exact perfect moment.Oh, did I mention, that was three years ago?Yeah, every time I talk to them, they say, "Any day now", be patient, the gears are turning, then list off a bunch of "so called inside info" from unnamed sources.Yeah, there's no such thing as an inside source, unless you happened to understand Hungarian and just happened to tap into Soro's satellite phone.
I must know their Family, Uncles, Aunts, Cousins & Nephews.... there's a ton of them out there! Conversation usually starts with, "If you bought just 100 shares of Disney, Amazon, Berkshire-Hathaway when they started...". They must have watched that "Back to the Future" movie, the bad dude takes a sports book back to the past and bets on the games, already knowing the outcome, to build his empire. "Oh... if I only had a TIME MACHINE!!!" ...and it usually ends with, "It's all rigged against us! We can't get a fair shake, the rich get richer, and we get poorer."A guy we known for decades, decided to "save himself rich", and live very frugal. Every penny of overtime, went to savings, along with 15% of his income. He never made anything other than modest, conservative investments in the market, CDs from the banks, never went after the high risk stuff. Without earning another penny, he has enough money to make it 30 years through retirement, a millionaire several times over. He never screwed or ripped off anyone - he saved & saved. He has money, he earned it... but needs to protect it.Several times over his lifetime, were punctuated by inflation, fear investing / selloffs, etc., none of which deterred him from saving. He never wasted time looking for the silver lining, the magic bullet, killer investment. Nor did he buy into the radio pitchman selling the next great investment vehicle.
You just described my dads' generation, a product of the Depression, a lesson I learned from him, "If you can't pay cash, it's not yours to own.I lived that for decades, lived like a pauper, paid cash for everything, my CD's/savings simply didn't exist because I refused to see them as a liquidity, they were there for emergencies only.Not until I retired 15 years ago, did I finally tap it and relax, never having splurged on fads of the day, I stuck with jeans and Tshirts and always made my own coffee.If people today would look at the amount of money they waste on frivolities, the crap they claim saves them time, when in truth, they could have set the timer on the coffee pot and had it waiting to take for an entire day.Seldom did I ever eat out, beans, rice, lean beef etc. The savings came back tenfold, in the end, every dime saved turned into a buck, in the long run, compounding interest.As you pointed out, it's not about investments, it's all about living within one's means.Don't get me started on debt.
I'm glad to know a few people who have done that - they're examples to my kids.Since I wasn't so wise, until much later in life, I'm taking the approach of never retirement. My income stream, instead of savings/investments, if successful will be a small business. This year is looking good.There is no point in worrying, just come up with a viable plan and work it - having a fall-back plan concurrently in action is wisest.Most of our friends invest & run businesses, and one of them has been speculating on mining - something I don't have the time to research, not the guts to try - he's had a few setbacks, but overall, done quite well. Another guy does real estate investing, which helped fund his businesses. Both of these guys use money to make more money, if they can't resell it, or it doesn't replace an essential component of their lives - they don't give it a second look. That's pretty tough, IMO, but they've conditioned themselves to *not* be swayed by the greed & envy in modern society & advertising. On-the-other-hand... we all sort of depend on societal weaknesses to sell those non-essential things.
I hear ya, man!Having grown up on a decent size farm, and accustom to WORK, it pisses me off to see my own kids lazy, or when a tool breaks - all work immediately halts. Really drives me nuts. We'd fix it, or find some other way to get the job done.When I asked, "take the weedeater, and cut down everything to the ground around the house. nobody moved. Finally, 3 days later, when an event they wanted to go to, was on-the-line (do this, or don't plan on going), they finally started moving... until the string in the weedeater got so short, it was sucked in."Can't get it apart, it's rusted together." He forgot, it's a reverse thread.... duh!No phone call to dad at work, until dad calls home, "did it get gone? No...? Then weed it by hand."You'd think the earth had just stopped turning, the stars started falling, or some nuclear bomb had hit - the world was ending, as they knew it. They got to their event, TWO HOURS late. I got home, it looked like someone had taken a spade all the way around the house, or plucked every blade of grass by hand - nothing but dirt. Good! Now I can treat for ants and other unwanted pests. In the end, they'll be glad they got it done, so am I.Next assignment, weedeat UNDER all the electric fences, ALL the pastures. ... bet they get new string on that weedeater, or figure out how to FIX it!
Today that's seen by leftist as abuse. Leftists just higher an illegal to do the work while the child rots on the vine.People think I'm nuts for having a pack of JB Weld, bailing wire and duct tape in all my vehicles.
Manual labor has been the inspiration for many labor saving devices.Everyone, is basically lazy, shunning manual labor - unless it's working out in a gym. (makes no sense to me).
Vanity, the driving force behind the success of my health club chain.
He noted that since Forbes created its first list of the 400 richest Americans in 1982 -- Buffett was worth just $250 million then - some 1,500 different people have been included. All with one thing in common. "You don't see any short sellers," he said, referring to people who bet stock prices will fall."It has been 241 years since Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence," he said. "Being short America has been a loser's game. I predict to you it will continue to be a loser's game."
No tool kit is complete without wd-40. Good idea on the JB Weld though, I need to go pick some up. Could have used it today.
I like to play the market in my mind, not Wall Street, a fixed monopoly via Cronyism, but I like to look at the future and try and predict trends.Take Harley for example, they are looking death in the eye, assuming they don't make changes, like marketing to Millennial', simply because the generation that made them rich is dying off, and because this is happening, there's a glut of cheap used Harley's hitting the mkt and killing new sales.