Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Being programmed to blame others without ever assessing oneself is IMHO bad programming, it instills a mindset that places 'power' or 'value' somewhere else other than between your ears. Sometimes it can be others at fault, thieves, frauds, liars, envious relatives or friends setting you up for failure, etc. But being able to do honest self-assessments can be priceless..
I don't think Reenah would disagree with you. She was just pointing out the default programming we all have in our brains. Some people override that default programming (i.e. take responsibility for themselves, while at the same time admitting they had at least a little luck along the way)...while many others just go with the default programs.
In the case of my brother, the failure belongs to him and him alone. He squandered the opportunity to graduate from an Ivy League. He's so ridiculous that he constantly complains that if he had a college degree he could get the job he really wants. He, of course, fails to recognize that him getting a degree was the point of my parents shelling out for 5 1/2 years of school! He screwed around, couldn't be bothered to go to class and never graduated. It was all there for him to take advantage of and he FAILED. No the school, not my parents, not society, HIM.
College is not for everyone. Very true. But, given that he made straight As in HS, a 1600 on the SAT, was fully engaged in applying to schools, was admitted to more than one Ivy, chose which to attend, chose his own major and class schedule, it's hard to see where the school failed him instead of the other way around.
And trust me, if he gave you 5K (of my mother's money of course) to mentor him, at the end of a couple of months he'd still have nothing and you'd have a lot more gray hair. Some people cannot be saved from themselves.
Being super smart can be a real curse. When school work comes too easy when you're young, you think this is going to be a prelude to real life where you won't have to put much effort into anything...and, of course, real life isn't like that. You'd think a brilliant person would have figured that out by now...but the fact that he hasn't is more about pride and ego, I suspect.
You just nitpicked a couple of positions and tried to pass it off like that proves everyone not in college are making good money. What about dishwashers, cashiers, ticket takers at movies, nursing assistants, fast food workers etc? Just because you know a few people who are making good money does not prove anyone can and is. There is just not enough higher paying jobs for everyone. If everyone did move up businesses would loss tons of profit or close down because no one would be working there. The rest of what you wrote is nonsense and has little to do with what I was talking about.
I'm not sure how you so easily misconstrue things. However, I made zero insinuation about people not making good money whether in or out of college. I know of dish washers that got paid $10/hr and shared tips with the front room along with bussers. I suppose it really depends on where the dishwashing is getting done. One of the ticket takers at a major theater chain that I know of is actually the regional VP (major theater chain too). I don't look down at people for their job and believe me, a lot of people have no idea how much people make in certain jobs they just presume the work to be beneath them and that it must necessarily pay less money. I simply indicated that people can prosper lucratively without college and referred to the misleading promises made concerning college education regarding assured success (at getting in debt and looking for a job as soon as you move out of Filthy Dormatory). There are plenty of people already selling The Glorious Path of Universities, Keg Parties, Square Hats & Golden Gowns, so I don't need to even go there.
Also what you say about "if everyone did move up", betrays faulty view of economics. First off anyone with a reasonable head around the money issue knows that better people are paid the more money in circulation the better the economy. Raising pay means people can afford more things and buy more things, which means more service providers or the like can make ends meet at the least. Cutting everyone's pay while keeping prices ludicrously high (is a kind of fraud and) means less people can afford things and more people then might start looking at robbery, pimpin', prostitution and street pharmaceuticals for economic relief options. AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED WHEN GAS PRICES HIT $4/HR IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS.
Anyone with their head on right about money (and I'm not talking about the nonsense spewed by talking head pseudo-economists) knows that 'cutting spending' or 'doing it cheaper' is more often than not another term for shrinking an economy. Its like reducing the bloodflow in a body, the body will shrink or atrophy or react in some way, shape or form. If the cuts are too steep: shock, death, blackouts. When someone is talking about paying people less they are appealing to idiocy, because that is the same as someone telling you by lowering the amount of blood in your body and by confining you to a 8' x 8' box "things will be better" since you're not 'wasting' energy. Its the same kind of nonsense applied to an entire society. Artificial scarcity is what results. There is a word for it: austerity. Its never a waste to see your neighbor fed and his or her kids well take care of. Believe me if your your enemy can convince you to go along with such economic suicide he will likely laugh at you fervently.
"Hey bossman, I have a brilliant idea. I r gonna improve our business and make realty more shiny by taking two 8 hour shifts from two teenage girls to which we currently pay p#ss poor inequitable wages for operating our cash registers!"
*bossman pat on head* "Oh glorious serf, you have most gloriously saved the world from the threat of two teenage girls having an extra $50 to spend per week. For a reward, you can have a free bag of $9.99 cookies that should be priced at $2.99. Pay no attention if people are p#ssed and angry every time they come in here because they have to stand in line for an extra hour! Of course, we shall not lower prices in consequence of this." By cutting the shift, $50 has been taken out of the local economy. Its amazing how many people think that kind of thing to somehow be a good thing when it is simply a way of shrinking the local economy. "Hey I figured out a way to save money." Money is for spending not being rescued from being exchanged.
The reason there haven't been 'enough higher paying jobs' is because the trends has been to send the jobs OVERSEAS to CHINA and/or to get USA folks accept as normal fraud of extraordinary low pay with ridiculous prices for needful things. Also money has been sucked out of the system. (You know like what happened in the German/Weimar economy around 1930?) The lack of money does not mean lack of needs to be met or lack of demand. It however spells complications for people who don't want to steal and who are unable to work out other means of equitable exchange.
Even if G#ldman S#chs sucked all of the money out of the North American economy it would not stop needs being met. Needs being met does not depend on the availability of money since money is only a token of value rather than value and substance itself. Money is only as valuable as the what you can acquire with it, otherwise its good for wallpapering or keeping warm the old fashioned way.
As for proving what people can possibly do, yes it is proof of possibility or potential of what CAN BE done rather than the negative nitty can't. Belief is powerful. And whether someones believes this or that may vary on a case by case basis. Whether someone is in a position to seize opportunity or perceive it, likewise, that may vary on a case by case basis. Which is why someone like me having a need for staff and being able to share my cashflow streams with them provides opportunity for them until perchance one or more of them decide to set off on some more appropriate path better suited for themselves. There are plenty of people in Fortune 500 companies and small business that help others. Not everyone is a greedy b#ttface.
Last edited by CaptainCommander; 05-27-2016 at 10:20 PM..
The irony here is that all of this negative energy that you put towards proving why you can't be rich could be the source of your wealth if only your attitude would change.
My father worked his butt off to put himself through college and law school and ultimately became very, very wealthy at a major corporation. I'm following in his footsteps and spent nearly 10 years of my life working 40-70 hour weeks, four of those years including going to law school at night while also working those hours, and even though I'm only in my very early thirties, I'm now earning lots of money.
I will certainly have $3m of investable assets by the time I'm 40 as long as I keep up my current level of career intensity. However, rather than rest on my laurels, I'm also working on studying for the GMAT in my spare time in order to get a top MBA so that hopefully I can add another zero (or two) to that figure by the time I retire.
I'm surrounded by naysayers such as yourself who think that only the lucky get rich (and then those naysayers go home at 5pm while there is still work to do or claim that something "isn't in my job description"); I just ignore them and keep on working towards success.
The amount that you are paid has nothing to do with how hard you work- it's all about how much value you provide. I CERTAINLY intend to provide 200,000x the value per year by the time I'm in my 50's as compared to the lowest-paid individual at my future employer. I won't be providing 200,000x the units of effort; I will be providing 200,000x the units of value.
I agree with most of this. My only criticism is that more degrees, more work, more money....that kind of tunnel vision can be pretty empty. I certainly wouldn't want it, to be honest. I value my time too much. But at the same time, I certainly don't resent people like you who choose to live this life.
Don't ignore the road less traveled. Just a couple examples I'm familiar with:
One neighbor of mine went to trade school to become a pipe fitter and licensed plumber. Fast forward 30 years and he now owns a plumbing business that focuses on residential water heater replacement. He has over 30 employees and a dozen trucks. He's built a successful business. He's a millionaire many times over.
Another neighbor of mine found himself at age 19 married with 2 young daughters. His wife abandoned them. He raised his daughters by himself, never remarrying. With no education, he landed a grunt job working for an insurance salesman. After a while, he learned enough to become an insurance salesman himself, and then started his own business selling annuities to retirees. At age 50, he now has about 50 employees and is a multimillionaire many times over.
A high school classmate of my daughter, quite gifted, was set to go to college... but Facebook made him an offer he couldn't refuse. They offered this 18 year old $125K/year to join Facebook instead of going to college. He's now mid 20s earning about a quarter million a year.
Far too many people view college as the *only* way. It isn't the only way.
Mr. Money Mustache also recently wrote a post about this:
You should apologize to anyone that's every had an association with slavery. Slavery means you don't have a choice.
You have a choice. Many people lead very fulfilling lives selling their time to one or two employers for their life. They don't get rich, but you don't have to get rich to have a nice life. Of course that employer makes money from that, otherwise, why would he/she/they risk their savings to begin the business in the first place.
Value is what something is worth to another person. To a collector, a Mickey Mantle baseball card is worth a lot of money, to me, it's worth $5. If some idiot is too lazy to go find a collector and sells me the card for $5 instead, why would I be blamed? He asks what I'd pay, I say $5. That person chooses to sell because they think it's their best option. A slave doesn't get the decision to sell/not sell.
Your labor is the same thing. Say you are a rocket scientist, but you want to live in Boise, Idaho. Maybe they don't need any rocket scientists there. Maybe someone needs a repairman for airplanes though, and you need to eat. Why would you expect a rocket scientist wage? For that matter, why would you even expect a good repairman wage, because you are not trained as a repair person, merely have talent that someone else can develop for you to do something useful.
You are not a slave to anyone but yourself. I understand that may mean you have a horrid master, but America works because it is an imperfect meritocracy, not an imperfect socialist paradise.
Millionaires chalk success up to hard work and family values
by Jackie Wattles @jackiewattles May 24, 2016: 6:10 PM ET
How to be a millionaire. Most high net worth Americans say they worked their way up from a lower class.
That's according to a report released by U.S. Trust on Monday, based on a survey that asked 684 adults in the U.S. with $3 million or more of "investible assets" hundreds of questions.
About 77% of those surveyed said they grew up in the middle class or lower, including 19% who say they were poor. And they credit their success to three somewhat surprising factors: Hard work, ambition and family upbringing. Respondents even went so far as to say that these influences were much more important than "connections" or "innate talent."
"The points seem to be so traditional in nature," said Chris Heilmann, the chief fiduciary executive at U.S. Trust, Bank of America's private wealth management firm. "It's [about] deeply held family values rather than an inheritance or existing wealth,"
The survey was also a shout-out to strict parents. About 80% of respondents said their parents were firm disciplinarians. They also named "academic achievement," "financial discipline" and "work participation" as the family values that were most emphasized in their homes.
"It indicates the American Dream seems to be alive and well," Heilmann said.
Considering that some people might doubt that, Heilmann said that the results were "refreshing, encouraging and a bit surprising."
CNNMoney (New York) First published May 23, 2016: 7:42 PM ET
The thing is, this is a completely invalid result due to selection bias. The implicit conclusion they want you to draw is "do A, then B will happen" with the implication that those who don't have large assets are somehow at fault. Of course this says nothing about all the people who did all the things suggested and still did not achieve wealth.
Even if we assume the data are correct, all this means is "hard work, ambition, and family upbringing" may be necessary conditions, but they are not sufficient. By selecting only those who are successful, we can't determine the real differences between them and others who also had "hard work, ambition, and family upbringing" but for whatever reason didn't achieve wealth.
Our MathJack is a poster child for this. He was on the top of commercial buildings in 100F and subzero fixing HVAC systems. He always says that there is always opportunity in career paths doing things other people don't want to do. I presume he was extremely competent at his job and was compensated appropriately. He saved & invested turning his lifetime income stream into a very comfortable retirement. I'm sure he had dozens of co-workers who spent every penny and didn't have the same outcome.
It certainly helps to win the genetic lottery and be born smart & healthy, to have affluent parents who live in a town with a good school system, and to have parents who impart a good work ethic and stress education & career but plenty of people are enormously successful without all those advantages. They at least have the work ethic and deferred gratification part.
Going back to the initial thread topic, I doubt most wealthy people are going to admit to growing up at least upper middle class because that's not politically correct. My father was an Oral Surgeon. Mom was an Ivy-trained university professor. I don't walk around talking about all the advantages I had. People would resent it. My parents both grew up poor in the depression era. A rags to riches story is fine and everyone applauds. A silver spoon to an affluent life is just rubbing in the fact that most affluent children have an easy path to success if they have the work ethic and deferred gratification stuff passed on to them. I know plenty of people who grew up affluent with every advantage but didn't have the work ethic or the self discipline and went nowhere. Most of them still had a better outcome than someone growing up poverty level.
Actually an associate of mine is a very astute HVAC tech. He does HVAC for super large facilities like airports and has his own business. They are very well paid **AND** they meet very very important needs. They make sure you don't have to sit in an airport for 7 hours in sweltering heat or extreme cold (thankless work maybe but they do it so well you don't even realize they exist and those are the kinds of jobs I'm talking about but a lot of people want flossy sparkly work). But typical snooty arrogance many folks see a guy in a blue shirt and a service van and think "oh poor man". LOL it is so not the case and maybe I shouldn't be telling you.
I once had someone make a nasty reply to me about working security at a particular location. I laughed I asked them how much she got paid? She was a nurse getting $15/hr. I told he that I only do that gig twice a week and that I got paid $150 for six hours of work in cash and its just something I do every now and then to take a break (sometimes I would 'vacation' by switching into another gig for a few months). Further I explained how I get to eat and drink for free and get paid to basically sit and talk with people all night at what amounts to a constant party. And I didn't have to get out of my pajamas until 4PM if push came to shove and of course that wasn't my main line of work. Overall, she had a pretty stupid look on her face and realized that she worked way, way harder than I did and longer and had to get up at onery hours. The point is the arrogant snooty people think "oh I won't seem so elite doing that job so it must be low paying". Strange logic farts they have.
Guys like that HVAC guy could go out and work on one or two installation jobs (he might do HVAC, I might install the telephone lines, network cable, etc.) a day. Each day we might start at 8am, finish by 2pm ,sit around at some Mexican restaurant and chill in the cool breezes while everyone else was fighting rush hour traffic. But the same people would look down at us and sneer at us for wearing blue shirts. I recall meeting two guys that got paid $10K per gig just for resurfacing sporting surfaces. People might sneer at them as 'poor blokes' but not me. They had so much business they were passing cards around asking for help.
The same HVAC guy, he lives in a small 'typically middle class house' and drives a regular ol' automobile and will likely retire to a very, very exotic location.
My observation is that most people go for the typical "what will make the most money careers" (doctor, lawyer) or "what will make them seem cool" or what will impress their friends/buddies/neighbors and all of that "competing with the Jones' " nonsense to the extent of overlooking less flossy options.
Typically the things that no one wants to do often the very things that are the most deeply needed. What most people want to be seen cool for doing or see as the "money maker" aren't necessarily always where the deepest demands for needs met truly are.
Last edited by CaptainCommander; 05-28-2016 at 09:18 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
