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Check back in with us in 25 years and let us know how losing 50% of your purchasing power to inflation works out for you.
The last 30 years you could have bought nice safe conservative bonds and actually beat equities.
The 30 year treasury returned an average of 11% a year return.
Well now that bonds have run their course and have actually bottomed out in return the last 3 months whats your plan?
Whatever was conservative is now pretty risky and what the bond markets won't destroy as they fall in value inflation will.
When I my earnings have increased sufficently within the next several years, my plan is to turbo-charge the amount of money I am putting into my G Fund TSP retirement plan to somewhere like 15% or higher per paycheck, to offset the inflationary pressures. G Fund retirement investments cannot lose any value and are guaranteed not to wipe out any principal, so I will essentially have the best of both worlds: a conservative, risk-free (minus the inflationary risk, of course) investment, that cannot lose value, and also investing enough each year to hopefully successfully resist the inherent inflationary pressures against it.
In addition to giving folks fish you might want to consider volunteering or mentoring and using your skills and knowledge to help others learn to fish. Many of the poor/disadvantaged don't want to be that way. They really don't know how to get out of their condition because to many should be advocates want to use them for political and personal gain. If you could only convince ten young people to not make the mistakes that help lead to a life of poverty you will have accomplished l lot.
Very intruiging...many thx for your thoughts and comments...
Your reasoning is rather specious, all the more so because your main example, Justin Bieber, is Canadian. In Canada, they don't have nearly the same problem with polarization of wealth we do here in the US.
Actually they do. Especially in the last 10 years. the scope of the problem isn't as bad as Canada, but they have the exact same problem. They're also moving faster away from wealth equality than we are.
Actually they do. Especially in the last 10 years. the scope of the problem isn't as bad as Canada, but they have the exact same problem. They're also moving faster away from wealth equality than we are.
It is pretty much global and so much of the means of production today involves intellect.
Respectfully I may actually have a clue. Upping the minimum wage as far as I want to will be like what Henry Ford did with his $5 a day wage back in the day. A $30 an hr minimum wage will restore our ability to buy the excess production capacity of the world. It would put the whole world back to work. And if the EU did the same thing it would bail them out as well.
This isn't the 1920's anymore. Oh dear, a $30 hour minimum wage? Holy crap! No, sorry, you don't have a clue, you're just out of touch with reality and economics.
It is pretty much global and so much of the means of production today involves intellect.
Yup, something the simplification in the video totally missed the barn on. It's not about working hard anymore as much as being smart. Working hard will give you a comfortable life, but it'll never make you rich. The CEOs get their pay set by the 1% not based on how hard they work but on how well they manage the money of the 1%.
Take John Brock, he's the CEO of Coca-Cola. Unlike some corporations, Coca-Cola pays out salary more than stock bonuses, so it's not like the Larry Page (Google) or Jeff Bezos (Amazon) with -- relatively -- low salaries. Brock racked in nearly $50 million the last five years. That's a lot of money. On the other hand, Coca-Cola doubled its worth since he took charge in 2006. Not bad, considering the markets been pretty flat (or more of a roller coaster with roughly equal start and finish) over that time period. In other words, the 1% who set his salary saw the pool of money that Coca-Cola is worth gain approximately $80 billion, so .6% of the increase in wealth went to John Brock who is the man responsible for running Coca-Cola at the end of the day.
I'm not saying I think CEOs are worth what they're being paid, because frankly I don't see that they are (not that it matters what my non-1% opinion is in the least). But comparing how "hard" a CEO works? That's just stupid. The decisions a CEO makes in an hour have a lot more to do with the success of Coca-Cola than the decisions one average employee of Coca-Cola makes in three months. He's paid to make decisions, not work hard. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to pay $10 million a year, but apparently that's what the 1% who control the board of Coca-Cola feel they do have to pay.
That begins in your K-12 education and the choices you make and your parents make.
One of the problems IMO is the unequal opportunity between K-12 schools, where good choices are not always available to parents/children. This is glaringly obvious living in a county with both some of the richest and poorest people/schools in the U.S. (Cook). You have some of the best schools in the country, a few miles away from some of the worst.
The differences in quality of education, materials, environment, can be astounding. The upper class are not only able to segregate their kids into top private schools, but they are also able to segregate their children into the best performing public schools based on property tax base (they can afford the homes in those districts) and/or connections.
If your parents have money, you have choices as do my children. But children who start with similar intellectual potential may not have the educational opportunities and fall further and further behind in their education. The lack of good K-12 schooling for lower and middle classes is a big factor in perpetuating the class divide and leading to wealth distribution inequality, especially in an economy that is so intellect-based.
One of the problems IMO is the unequal opportunity between K-12 schools, where good choices are not always available to parents/children. This is glaringly obvious living in a county with both some of the richest and poorest people/schools in the U.S. (Cook). You have some of the best schools in the country, a few miles away from some of the worst.
The differences in quality of education, materials, environment, can be astounding. The upper class are not only able to segregate their kids into top private schools, but they are also able to segregate their children into the best performing public schools based on property tax base (they can afford the homes in those districts) and/or connections.
If your parents have money, you have choices as do my children. But children who start with similar intellectual potential may not have the educational opportunities and fall further and further behind in their education. The lack of good K-12 schooling for lower and middle classes is a big factor in perpetuating the class divide and leading to wealth distribution inequality, especially in an economy that is so intellect-based.
I understand what you are saying but the sad reality is that if you look at suburban school districts that have a representation of low income housing (section 8) you often see the same patterns of underperformance and poor decision making. You do see many student availing themselves of the opportunity. Another reality is that if you compare the resources available in our urban schools with schools in other countries our schools are not always at the disadvantage but our students are beat in academic performance. It isn't the schools as much as it is the home culture and how they do or don't support education. Pick a city and then examine the suburban school systems adjacent to the urban area. See if the schools closes to the urban area perform equally to the schools in the outer part of that district. Same district same resources. Compare and what do you see? Unless you are advocating massive wealth redistribution making one person less affluent isn't going to make another more.
John Lennon has to be the most overquoted and overestimated an of the 20th century. By the way, he had piles and piles of money. I guess it's easy to be a socialist once you can afford it.
These celebrity socialists are complete hypocrites. I don't see THEM offering up THEIR wealth and living the way typical middle (or even upper middle) class people do.
Actor Gerard Depardieu just gave up his French citizenship to avoid their 75% top income tax rate. Something tells me he's probably not politically conservative.
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