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Ahh so the guy who has spent countless rambling posts telling other posters that he knows little about are greedy because their views of economic policy don't agree, is now offering this gem of advice?
God's chosen people are not rich and powerful Mathjak, they are poor and outcast. Maybe all your friends are God's chosen people and you are not. Maybe you are worshiping the Devil, who knows. The American Dream has become, quite expressively, the LOVE OF MONEY. How does America measure success? By the size of a man's house, his car and his bank account, or by the quality of his character? Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." I'm not saying that success in the world IS sinful, I'm saying it was sinful in the eyes of Jesus.
Part of our problem as a culture is that we define success only one way, in terms of money. There are a lot of different forms of success. Was Vincent Van Gogh a success? He sold one painting when he was alive. Herman Melville wrote the greatest American novel so far...he died penniless and his name was even misspelled in his obituary. William Blake died penniless and unrecognized. We won't be a great culture/civilization if we only value money and power, forgetting about the other, the humanitarian, side of the circle: knowledge, art, culture, music, philosophy, and literature. Was Mother Theresa a success? Her bank account says she was a 'loser'.
We are afraid of death, so we put all our energy into money, which represents (we think) distance from death. This is an illusion, of course. Rich people get cancer. Rich people die. Rich people turn to dust. And always will.
Is the mother who raises three children and helps them become hard-working contributors to our society a success? Not by the monetary scale, she isn't.
We have a very narrow, limited view of life in America. The American Dream should not be about living in a Mc Mansion and driving a German car, to show your neighbors you made it - it should be about fulfilling your potential on whatever path chooses you. A good school teacher who helps even a handful of students find themselves out of the forest of confusion may be a success, even if he has to take a second job to try to keep the bank from taking his house away from him.
Every one is a winner and a loser and moves throughout his or her life between these two poles regularly, being a loser at one time, in one endeavor, and a winner, later, in the same or a different direction. Be slow to judge others. Others are, in truth, yourself, at a different stage on the Time-Wheel. When our FED finally raises rates you may end up being a loser again because this upcoming Depression will be much greater then the one we had back in 1929-1942.
I'm already feeling the Great Depression because I can't afford a home even though I save 70% of my income
Try this. When you have a chance to talk with some of your seemingly well-off friends, ASK THEM. Just say, "You know, John, you seem to be doing very well, what's your secret"? Trust me, they will love to answer you, but you might be surprised by the answers.
I tried this once when I was going through a tough time in my life. I wasn't very happy and it "seemed" like everyone around me was happy, in a good relationship and doing much better than I felt I was. I read in a book to ask the three happiest people I knew about their lives. What a wake up call! Of the three "happiest" people I knew, one had a wife just diagnosed with cancer, one was about to file for divorce and one had a teenage child in jail for raping a girl. It helped me to realize that those people that I assumed were happy were just as or MORE miserable than I was. Needless to say, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started doing positive things to increase my own happiness.
I always liked this saying, " I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man with no feet." Maybe you should take a ride down to the real poor side of town and look around. It might help you to appreciate what you have.
Again, I'm real and not fake and the people I know don't put up or can't get away with fronts. I've known some of them many years,long enough to see what they have. It's not hard to tell when a person has a broken down car for over a month that there may be an inkling of something wrong. As for the no shoes quote,I'm not far from that and have been like that more than I wanted to...but that was the purpose of this thread.
You won't tell us how much you earn, so it's hard to know if you have an income problem or a spending problem--or both. If it's an income problem...then you have to make a long term plan to earn more money and you need to be very realistic (go into a field that has a high probability of good employment prospects) and strategic about it. Basically, you will have to work both hard AND smart if you want to earn more...and then once you do earn more, you don't upgrade your lifestyle--or at the very least you upgrade it at a much slower rate than the increase in your pay.
I'm refraining from mentioning my income for now because as I've said it's too embarrassing,and as for those other things it's not like I'm not aware of them but there's only so much you can do on your own power. I'm often stuck and this is one of those times. I can't make people hire me,all I can do is keep updating my resume and critiquing it and sending it out to as many prospects as possible.
There's no such thing as "bad financial genetics", unless you're talking about the financial situation you were born into. Family wealth does have a large effect on the wealth of an individual over their life. Ex. those born poor are more likely to stay poor over their lifetimes than those born middle class. That doesn't mean someone who was born poor can't become rich during the course of their life, but the chances are a lot slimmer than someone who was born middle class or rich. But there is no gene that causes you to be bad at accumulating wealth. The most likely reason you're in the situation you're in now is because of the choices you've made. Granted there are other factors beyond your control like luck, but your financial situation is largely what you make of it. If by "norm" you mean average, then you'll have to look at statistics (average income, net worth, etc.) to figure that out.
Agreed on the first part,I've examined the backgrounds of those who come from money and obviously it's hard to screw that up when you always have backing. And yes I might have made some poor career choices,but no one told me when I was young you can do what you like or do what earns the most...that may have been a more deciding factor. But I'm always moving forward and trying to improve things,as difficult a climb as it is. The luck thing you mentioned is a major part of it I think,I haven't exactly gotten the best breaks.
i am still friends with some of the guys from the projects where i grew up . guess what ? they are raising their own family's there now . they had the same opportunity as i did to be successful.
Funny,I think rich all the time but it's nothing but a pipe dream without the opportunities. That's the key word,not everyone gets offered the same opportunities...
God's chosen people are not rich and powerful Mathjak, they are poor and outcast. Maybe all your friends are God's chosen people and you are not. Maybe you are worshiping the Devil, who knows. The American Dream has become, quite expressively, the LOVE OF MONEY. How does America measure success? By the size of a man's house, his car and his bank account, or by the quality of his character? Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." I'm not saying that success in the world IS sinful, I'm saying it was sinful in the eyes of Jesus.
Part of our problem as a culture is that we define success only one way, in terms of money. There are a lot of different forms of success. Was Vincent Van Gogh a success? He sold one painting when he was alive. Herman Melville wrote the greatest American novel so far...he died penniless and his name was even misspelled in his obituary. William Blake died penniless and unrecognized. We won't be a great culture/civilization if we only value money and power, forgetting about the other, the humanitarian, side of the circle: knowledge, art, culture, music, philosophy, and literature. Was Mother Theresa a success? Her bank account says she was a 'loser'.
We are afraid of death, so we put all our energy into money, which represents (we think) distance from death. This is an illusion, of course. Rich people get cancer. Rich people die. Rich people turn to dust. And always will.
Is the mother who raises three children and helps them become hard-working contributors to our society a success? Not by the monetary scale, she isn't.
We have a very narrow, limited view of life in America. The American Dream should not be about living in a Mc Mansion and driving a German car, to show your neighbors you made it - it should be about fulfilling your potential on whatever path chooses you. A good school teacher who helps even a handful of students find themselves out of the forest of confusion may be a success, even if he has to take a second job to try to keep the bank from taking his house away from him.
Every one is a winner and a loser and moves throughout his or her life between these two poles regularly, being a loser at one time, in one endeavor, and a winner, later, in the same or a different direction. Be slow to judge others. Others are, in truth, yourself, at a different stage on the Time-Wheel. When our FED finally raises rates you may end up being a loser again because this upcoming Depression will be much greater then the one we had back in 1929-1942.
I'm already feeling the Great Depression because I can't afford a home even though I save 70% of my income
How long do we have to put up with the stupidity of the Fed and our leaders who believe they can inflate a deflating global economy? We need to put a lid on the mentality that spending, spending, spending will fix everything. The only thing that will 'fix' this new housing crisis, for example, is for housing prices to deflate back to salaries, and to become affordable again. That is, prices have to come down!
The idea that spending trillions to keep housing values propped up on an artificial plateau is, in fact, a form of INSANITY. It's like agreeing to pay billions for worthless swampland in Florida to keep the rumor from getting out that the swampland is…overvalued.
Our government is spending hand over fist because it fears a revolution will break out if it allows the economic cycle to follow its own course. At some point all these unnecessary dams are going to have to break so that we can start rebuilding them. Be patient Perma Bear, this can't last forever. Interest rates go up = prices go down. Buy a house when interest rates are high and prices are low; then refinance as interest rates go back down. If one buys an overpriced house, when interest rates are low, the price will decline in value when rates go up again and there will be no way to balance this by refinancing to a higher rate of interest. You NEVER want to buy a house when interest rates are too low.
Thank you Truth11....
America’s behavior – and cultural prejudice - putting money over every other value in life - is shameful. We are clearly worshipping the Golden Calf, not the philosopher-God on the mountain. Part of this comes from our clinging to the idea of the American Dream, which we translate almost entirely today as 'financial' freedom. Everything valuable can be bought.
Send us your tired, your weak, your poor.......and we can remake them as millionaires. This is a pretty amazing myth, with a very large shadow attached, making money the only thing that matters in America, on the Earth, and in God’s Heaven. That's why we have a large share of the world's millionaires, but also a very high rate of insanity, drug addiction, plastic surgery, alcoholism, suicide, child molestation, rape, murder...because for every millionaire America creates it creates 100,000+ so called losers (non-millionaires).
The American Dream has to be about more than just about money. We seem to be basing our ‘dream’ on an illusion. Money is seductive, yes, I understand this. Money is the ‘Wh*ore of Babylon’.
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