[bmw335xi]

Originally Posted by UKWildcat1981

I made a lot of money just on Apple and Microsoft over the years, enough to pay for all of my college, graduate schools, cars, a to buy a house. I did get lucky thou because some of my family helped me out with stocks and which stocks to buy.

I'm glad to hear that! Yeah, there are tons of ways to make money. Investing is one of the best avenues for the average person. I always cringe when I hear someone say, we need to tear down Wall Street. I know so many average Joe's that are on their way to a comfortable retirement and life because of Wall Street, myself included. It's just important for people to be real with themselves and educate themselves.

One of my friends who never invested before, opened an account when Facebook was coming out with their IPO. She was so excited and dumped all her money into it the day it went public. If anyone remembers, Facebook's stock dumped for awhile. After 2 weeks, she posted a long rant blasting Wall Street, stocks and Facebook. She continued by saying, it's impossible for the little guy to benefit from Wall Street.

I replied to her post by saying something like, if you had any clue about investing, you would have known Facebook was completely over-valued. Its P/E ratio was over 800 for crying out loud! All this is public information. You should have known you were being greedy buying this over-valued pig right when it IPO'd. In addition, you held a stock for 2 weeks and then dumped it! An investment for most people should be multiple YEARS, not days or weeks. If she would have held it as an investment, she would have more than doubled her money today. People blame their failures on the system, when it fact, they should be blaming their ignorance and greed.

[UKWildcat1981]

Originally Posted by bmw335xi

I'm glad to hear that! Yeah, there are tons of ways to make money. Investing is one of the best avenues for the average person. I always cringe when I hear someone say, we need to tear down Wall Street. I know so many average Joe's that are on their way to a comfortable retirement and life because of Wall Street, myself included. It's just important for people to be real with themselves and educate themselves.

One of my friends who never invested before, opened an account when Facebook was coming out with their IPO. She was so excited and dumped all her money into it the day it went public. If anyone remembers, Facebook's stock dumped for awhile. After 2 weeks, she posted a long rant blasting Wall Street, stocks and Facebook. She continued by saying, it's impossible for the little guy to benefit from Wall Street.

I replied to her post by saying something like, if you had any clue about investing, you would have known Facebook was completely over-valued. Its P/E ratio was over 800 for crying out loud! All this is public information. You should have known you were being greedy buying this over-valued pig right when it IPO'd. In addition, you held a stock for 2 weeks and then dumped it! An investment for most people should be multiple YEARS, not days or weeks. If she would have held it as an investment, she would have more than doubled her money today. People blame their failures on the system, when it fact, they should be blaming their ignorance and greed.

I do not have enough to retire on but it was enough money to live on for a while. Apple stock was hot about 8 years ago, I wish I had brought more of it. Mutual funds are kinda lame they don't give you the returns stocks do thou.

[bmw335xi]

Originally Posted by UKWildcat1981

I do not have enough to retire on but it was enough money to live on for a while. Apple stock was hot about 8 years ago, I wish I had brought more of it. Mutual funds are kinda lame they don't give you the returns stocks do thou.

You need to look at your risk/reward tolerance. People choose mutual funds for retirement because they are a lot safer than individual stocks. Generally speaking, less risk = less reward, more risk = more reward. I invest using primarily technical analysis, which can be applied to anything, but is mostly used for individual stocks or ETFs. There is a lot to learn going this route, but once fully understood, your risk is quite limited, while your gain potential is quite high. For most people, I would just recommend them buying something like VTI or SPY. VTI tracks the overall stock market performance, where as SPY tracks the S&P 500. Both of them are safe to buy, forget and hold. They will bounce back after any stock market crash. However, those wanting to be more involved, technical analysis is the way to go, but before learning technical analysis, it's good to have a strong foundation, which is learned through fundamental analysis.

[bale002]

Originally Posted by Not_liking_FL

I know there are many wealthy retirees in Florida, but they would need a $378K annual income to qualify as the 1% in Florida. I doubt too many pensions pay that kind of income.

Nevada is another state on the list that has me scratching my head. I can see Connecticut and even NY.

Nevada also has no state income tax, and dry heat which appeals to some people over humidity. Nevada also has mountains as opposed to flat land. Lake Tahoe - the Nevada side - is akin to paradise on earth compared to swamp. Finally, some people prefer moderate gambling as a hobby over golf.

Lots of Californians move to Nevada. Lake Tahoe the California side is crud, you can see the difference the second you cross the border.

Still scratching your head?

You want a country with a low Gini coefficient? Try Italy.

Now research its economic growth over the past 25 years.

Or the Soviet Union, see how that turned out.

[Not_liking_FL]

Originally Posted by bale002

Nevada also has no state income tax, and dry heat which appeals to some people over humidity. Nevada also has mountains as opposed to flat land. Lake Tahoe - the Nevada side - is akin to paradise on earth compared to swamp. Finally, some people prefer moderate gambling as a hobby over golf.

Lots of Californians move to Nevada. Lake Tahoe the California side is crud, you can see the difference the second you cross the border.

Still scratching your head?

You want a country with a low Gini coefficient? Try Italy.

Now research its economic growth over the past 25 years.

Or the Soviet Union, see how that turned out.

I'm not scratching my head anymore, but it's not from the BS you posted. I was thinking Nevada had a higher population. Having a few 1 percenters can skew the numbers considerably in low population states.

I don't have the income of the 1% but I've done alright for myself. I could care less about Italy or the Soviet Union. I was just surprised Florida has that large of a gap, especially with such a large population.

[bmw335xi]

Originally Posted by bale002

Nevada also has no state income tax, and dry heat which appeals to some people over humidity. Nevada also has mountains as opposed to flat land. Lake Tahoe - the Nevada side - is akin to paradise on earth compared to swamp. Finally, some people prefer moderate gambling as a hobby over golf.

Lots of Californians move to Nevada. Lake Tahoe the California side is crud, you can see the difference the second you cross the border.

Have you been to Lake Tahoe? I'm sure you haven't. I live only around 4 hours from there and go every year. There is no debate that people choose to live on the California side. On the Nevada side, you have a small town called Carson City, which is a dump with some tacky casinos. The next city up is Reno, which is a seedy, small version of Las Vegas. People who move to these areas are generally people who cannot afford to live in South Lake Tahoe. There is no way you have been here based on your comments lol, good try though.

[UKWildcat1981]

Originally Posted by bmw335xi

Have you been to Lake Tahoe? I'm sure you haven't. I live only around 4 hours from there and go every year. There is no debate that people choose to live on the California side. On the Nevada side, you have a small town called Carson City, which is a dump with some tacky casinos. The next city up is Reno, which is a seedy, small version of Las Vegas. People who move to these areas are generally people who cannot afford to live in South Lake Tahoe. There is no way you have been here based on your comments lol, good try though.

I agree with you, I swear people make up stories all the time on here. Its kinda sad, makes me want to never go on this site again if they don't clean up the trolling and excessive bickering. People make up opinions and pass them off as facts on here, geez what is going on man

[bbronston]

The problem with terms like "wealth inequality" is that they presuppose that the subject is genuinely subject to the concept of equality. There is no such thing as wealth equality except in the minds of sociopaths who believe that everyone should have everything they want (whether they have earned it or not) simply because others have earned it themselves. That's not to say that the wealthy were able to create their wealth in a vacuum without the help of others but there is a reason why some people make things happen, why others support those people, and why others achieve very little. Yet, there are those who think it is perfectly ok to force redistribution of wealth "just because" of some misplaced sense of fairness. Nonsense. What we need to assure is equality of opportunity, not outcome.

[StreetSmarts]

I'm not surprised at the article really at all. There are wealthy retirees driving the income up and lots of poverty in FL as well.

[BucFan]

There are millions of old farts on fixed income/social security in this state - what's so shocking about that?