America's Descent Into a Third World Country Has Begun.

Indeed you can play it to your advantage. The same thing is true with the casinos. They will even give you cash to get you in the door.

 

In a Casino the odds are stacked against you no matter what game you play. ALWAYS! If it was easy to make money gambling in a Casino I would not need to waste my time with this internet stuff now would I now.
Gambling in a Casino is not an investment!

 

You just demonstrated with this post that you no nothing about the wealthy, their spending habits, or where they live. Please go pick up a copy of the Millionaire Next Door, or the Millionaire Mind, then read it, then come back in this thread and post.

I can tell that you base your assumption of how the wealthy act, and where they live based on what you see on television and the media, and as usual, the mass media is dead wrong. In the Millionaire Mind, a New York Times bestseller by the way, the authors do surveys with about 700 millionaires(individuals who have a minimum net worth of $1 million or more), and this is what the authors found:

1. Most millionaires don't live in upscale neighborhoods.
2. Only a small number of millionaires purchase brand new cars.
3. Most of the millionaires on their survey never in their lives paid more than $300 for a suit.
4. Most of the millionaires never paid more than $200 for a watch.
5. Most of the millionaires are frugal, and live well within their means.
6. Few of the millionaires surveyed invest in the stock market.
7. The millionaires surveyed were "balance sheet affluent(meaning they HAVE lots of money), not just Income Affluent(you make a lot of money, but you don't have a very high networth).
8. Most of the millionaires on the survey owned their own business, and were not employees.
9. Most of the millionaires on the survey did not have extraordinary IQs, or graduate from Ivy League schools.

As you can see, the survey discredits your theory about "the wealthy not wanting to buy up townhouses in suburbs of some nothing city." Please read more books on finance rather than getting your perception of what it means to be wealthy from TV shows like MTV Cribs, The OC, and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I can assure you that none of these television shows are reality, and if you think they are, you yourself probably aren't very well off.

Most of the people who live in Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Manhattan, and all these other ritzy areas are just high income people who have lots of debt, and no real assets. Trust me I know this for a fact, I've read many books about it. Appearances are deceiving, what appears before you eyes may not always be reality.

You should really read the Millionaire Next Door, anyone here who wants to truly learn more about finance should buy this book, I've read it at least four times, that is how good it is. You will love the part in the book when a high income person with no real net worth sits down during a group discussion with a group of true millionaires, it is funny as hell, the millionaires make the high income/low net worth guy look like an idiot..........

 

By talking to someone for a few minutes, or reading their posts in places like Digital Point, I can tell whether or not they are truly wealthy, even if I don't know their exact net worth. I can tell by the things they say. When I hear someone say or imply that "the wealthy only live in upscale areas," I immediately know that the person who made this comment is not wealthy, because someone who is truly wealthy knows that the wealthy don't all live in upscale neighborhoods.

Also, whenever you hear someone say that you need to have a certain amount of money to be considered "rich," again, this is a person who is not wealthy. A truly wealthy person knows that wealth is not tied to a dollar amount. For example, in Robert Kiyosaki's and Donald Trump's book "Why We Want You to Be Rich," they imply that a lot of people consider your rich only when you have between $100,000 to $1 million.

However, this is a load of BS. Why? Because someone who only has $100,000 is not "rich enough" to pay for something that is $300,000. Someone who only has $1 million is not rich enough to purchase something that cost $10 million. To define wealth based on any specific dollar amount is the height of stupidity..........and is the sign of someone who not only doesn't have wealth, but knows absolutely nothing about money or finance.......

Donald Trump may be "wealthy"(he has a net worth of about $3 billion), but he is not "wealthy enough" to purchase the Palace of Versailles in France, which is estimated to be between $13 and $100 billion dollars.

Bill Gates may be one of the richest men in the world, but again, if he attempted to pay for the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan for two months, he would not only become broke, but likely bankrupt, at the very least, much of his net worth would be wiped out. Wealth should never be defined by a specific dollar amount, because no one on planet Earth has unlimited financial resources......

One thing I learned from the Millionaire Next Door, is that even if someone makes more money than you, and even has more money than you, you may be more RELATIVELY wealthier then they are. In other words, someone who makes only an average yearly salary could be more relatively wealthier than say, a lawyer or doctor.............I'm serious.

The average person who knows nothing about money automatically assumes that the lawyer or doctor is richer than some guy who works at a dead end job, but the Millionaire Next Door clearly shows this assumption to be a false one.

 

You are 100% correct. Just pointing out the Casinos plat the same game as credit cards. The odds are stacked against you if you play their game but a few people get some benifits from the free-bees that they give out.

If you are vacationing in Atlanic City or Las Vegas they are good for some free lunches and other comps. But yeah once you start playing on the tables you will go broke fast as it's a fools game.

Same thing is true with the credit cards. You start running up a big balance at 30% and they got you. On the other hand, you pay off your balances quick and you got them.

 

I absolutely love your posts here in P&R telsa, but you are definately wasting your time here trying to educate a lot of these fools.

 

I think telsa is a guy though but that is great if you are learning, do a profile search on telsa and have a read of some of the posts, it's sheer quality mate, he's one of the best posters here in this DP P&R forum.

 

I'm a "He," that lovely lady in my avatar is Dana Scully, played by actress Gillian Anderson in the X-files series. Speaking of the X-files I hear they are working on a sequel to the 1998 film, I can't wait for it to come out! The X-files is awesome!

 

Without wanting to blow the guy off (lol) he's a superb poster, he doesn't get caught up in petty BS like I do with certain members of this P&R area such as insane members like GTech, d16man and Mia who are all staunch neocon supporters that I waste so much time arsing about with.

telsa simply makes some great posts, a lot like guerilla does too.

guru is a great poster too but he's a lot like me, spending a lot of time piss arsing around attacking members of the DP "crazy gang" because they are completely insane Bush and Cheney lovers.

 

"Rich and Wealthly" is to me is a combination of assests and income. The "Rich and Wealthy" also have intangible assests like social networks and education.

A lottery winner that won 5 million and was "blowing it" or someone living at 110% of their income would not be considered "Rich and Wealthly"

Further, I wouldn't consider someone to be "rich and wealthly" just because they have asssests. There's plenty of people that are "land rich" but there income are not very high.

Rich is a vague term. A campesino South of the Border would consider rich a lot differently than someone living on Central Park West in New York.

Form my marketing research class I remember we defined class as follows:

Poor
Working Class
Upper Working Class - Police, Unionized Labor
Lower middle class - Compuer Operator
Middle Class
Upper Middle Class - Doctor, Attorney
Lower UpperClass
Middle UpperClass
UpperClass
Upper-Upper - Less than 1% of the Upperclass and old money

 

lol, I can tell by most of the posts on digital point that you guys are only step or so out of living in your mom's house

a net worth of million dollars isn't even very much, that is not "wealthy" to me

when I think of wealthy people I am talking about people who whose net worth is millions of dollars, my girlfriends parents own a bunch of crappy rentals that they have had forever their net worth is got be over a million and I don't see them as wealthy

Have you ever even been to any of those places?

 

Its not a personal attack, its an observation

Also all these views on how wealth is defined are just opinion , because telsa book says that there is "relative" wealth doesn't mean there is.

Like a Mc Donalds worker who saves 30k might be wealthy by that formula, but its still only 30k, which won't get you very far in terms of security, retirement etc

Although maybe if you put your standard of living low enough ....

 

Here's another sign that America is becoming the third world

"Foreign buyers snap up 2nd homes in US "

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071224...eign_buyers;_ylt=ArtbAVu1PbqgPx1W71O8F.WyBhIF

 

they were doing that during the boom too, lots of Real Estate around Orlando was bought by UK buyers

 

Not that I have a problem with that. You can't take real estate out of the country and it's a good way to get the dollars back. It also gives Americans jobs and provides local tax revenue.

 

Forgot about that. Just bring bags of 500 euro notes and we will rent you any apartment you want.

 

Please go read the Millionaire Mind and the Millionaire Next Door. You're again making your assumptions based on specific dollar amounts, a classic sign of someone who hasn't read any books on finance. A million dollars is more than 90% of Americans have, if you did research on this topic you'd know the average American only has a net worth of $86,000 and this is only when their house is included, which many finance experts don't consider a mortgage to be an asset, because you're in debt, and don't own the property free and clear.

Another reason why you're saying that $1 million is not a lot is because the dollar itself, as me and Guerilla have stated many times, is losing value, and has being do so for almost 100 years. While it may be true that a million can't by what it used to, this is not technically true, a frugal person can essentially live in the lap of luxury and have infinite wealth with $1 million. This also why your money should always be backed by Silver and Gold, because when it is, you are immediately protected from inflation, and your money maintains its purchasing power.

Recent news articles show that someone who makes $40,000 a year makes more than half of all Americans, common sense says that if you HAVE $1 million, this means you're richer than 90% of the U.S. population, and compared to third and fourth world countries, you are essentially one of the richest people in the world.

Must I get into the mathematics of this? Saying that "this amount or that amount is not a lot" is the typical thing that low net worth people always say. Here is the mathematical formula that you use to measure you wealth, and it isn't based off of what you "think" is a lot of money:

your age x your annual gross income /(divided) by 10. Now, with this mathematical formula, anyone here at Digital Point can calculate their net worth and determine if they are wealthy, not based on what they or anyone else thinks but based on math and science. I will now use a classic word problem to demonstrate the effectiveness of this simple formula.

Joe Bloe is a doctor who makes $150,000 a year from his job and all his investments. Joe Blow is also 45 years of age. According to my formula, his net worth should be 45 x 150,000/10. Solving this problem brings you to the amount of $675,000. This is the net worth Joe Blow should have is he is to be considered a AAW, which stands for Average Accumulator of Wealth. If he has less than this amount, he is a UAW, or Under Accumulator of Wealth, meaning he is not truly wealthy, even if he LOOKS like it. If he has twice this amount or about $1.3 million or more, he is called a PAW, or Prodigious Accumulator of Wealth.

This is the mathematical formula which is used to determine your standing, and it is not based on your perception of what you think is a lot of money, but is based on detailed research conducted by PHDs who wrote a New York Times bestseller that has sold millions of copies.

No, this does not take into account the age of the person, which is a central part of the formula I demonstrated. If the person working at Mcdonald's is 19 to 25 years old, than this person is stupendously wealthy, much more than hardly anyone in their income bracket(Mcdonalds is minimum wage, most MCD workers don't have anywhere near $30,000). A young person with this high of net worth at age 25 has a tremendous advantage because they have time on their side, and if they continue to save and invest this money, it will only grow, and they will be able to retire early. Now, if you are 45 years old, and you only have a net worth of $30,000 you are not wealthy, because you've had more time to build up far more than $30,000.

When you consider the fact that 19% of the people who make $100,000 per year live paycheck to paycheck, it becomes easy to see why a Mcdonalds worker who has $30,000 in the bank can indeed be far wealthier than a lawyer or Doctor making $100,000 a year who have lots of debt, a luxury life style, with only, say, $15,000 sitting in the bank. Now, when you compare the Mcdonalds worker to others in their income bracket, who are mostly defined as being wage slaves or the working poor, this Mcdonalds worker would be considered to be truly "wealthy."

You also didn't consider that a small portion of this $30,000 in your hypothetical example could be invested and turned into millions. For example, James Sun, runner up during the Sixth Season of the Apprentice, took $5,000 at 18, invested in a technology fund, and this $5,000 became $2 million by the time he was 23 years old.

The problem with your reasoning is that you are not thinking on a level of high strategy. The true master strategies looks beyond any given amount of money, pondering about whether it is a lot or not, and is instead resourceful enough to maximize the money in a way that gives him a huge return. I don't see $30,000, $5,000, or $10,000 the way the typical person sees it, as more money than the average joe, but "not a lot."

Instead, I see it as potential seed money that, if a small percentage is properly harnessed, can allow you to become a millionaire, or even a billionaire. The savings that you have is the seed money that can grow into a giant sequoia tree if you have the prudence to wield it properly.

Anyone working at Mcdonalds who has $30,000 is likely resourceful, and being resourceful is the key to become fabulously wealthy, especially when you continue to use that resourcefulness even after becoming wealthy.

It is not necessary to travel to these places. Two authors, William D. Danko, and Thomas J. Stanley, have wrote a best selling book based on millionaires, and they've already surveyed people who live in these places. It is not necessary to visit them, if you read the Millionaire Next Door(pay close attention to the part that says NEXT DOOR), then you come to understand why most of the people living in ritzy neighborhoods only look rich, but in most cases, are not truly rich.

In other words ferret, there may be people right this second living in "middle class" neighborhoods who are in fact PAWs, or millionaires. These people are smart, and a lot of the time, you won't know they are rich. Why? BECAUSE TRUE WEALTH ALWAYS HIDES ITSELF.

The most powerful things in the universe are things which are invisible. Think about it. What do Atoms, Black Holes, and Wind have in common? You can't see them, and they have a fantastic amount of energy and power. Likewise, the most richest people in the world are not Tom Cruise, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or anyone else you read about or hear about. The wealthiest people in the world are unknown to you and I, they are shadow walkers who hide in the shadows, and because no one knows how rich they are, or how much money they have, they are much more powerful than Bill Gates or anyone else who is known to the press......

Get past the idea that the guy driving down the street in an Escalade or Mercedes with 18 inch chrome wheels, who has a rolex watch and expensive suit, is rich. Studies show he is not. It is the plain dressed guy sitting in the bookstore reading with holes in his socks, he is the one who is rich.