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

Ferret, I can tell by reading your posts that your perception of what it means to be wealthy is defined by what you see in television. What you see on TV is not reality, it is a type of matrix which is used to blind you from the truth. I just got through reading a chapter in a book I own called the 33 Strategies of War by Roberte Greene, and in the latest chapter I'm reading on Uncoventional Warfare, the author makes it clear that to destroy your enemy, you must ALTER their perception.

Your perception of financial reality has been altered by what you've seen and heard in the mass media, and this is similar to the world Neo lived in before he realized it was all a simulation. This is why I don't watch much TV, it is a tool used to brain wash people in different ways.

I like shows like 24, but you've got Americans right now who believe torture actually works, because they BASE their perceptions of torture based on what Jack Bauer does, and experts in the military have stated more than once that torture does not work, it doesn't work at all, especially in the way it is depicted in 24. Kiefer Sutherland has had to visit military places just to tell the cadets that torture is wrong, and the military has asked the directors of 24 to tone down the torture scenes.

Television alters your perception of your reality, and the people who control the networks control you, just as the machines in the matrix series controlled humans by altering their perceptions.

Dammit, am I the only one on this forum who can see that there are forces at work that don't want humans to realize their potential? You only think a million bucks is not a lot because the mass media has told you so, they constantly flash images before your eyes of how much a celebrity paid for this, how much they spent on that. After you've been told enough times that a celebrity paid $20 million for this, $7 million for that, soon, you start to think that $1 million is not a lot.......

Ha! a wise man sees that these images are done to make you feel inferior, make you feel pathetic, like you have no power. But it doesn't work on me, I see right past all that BS, I see things for what they are. If you want to free yourself, not just financially, but philosophically and spiritually, you have to realize your own potential as a human being living on this planet..

Once you do it, like Neo, you will awaken and realize your powers, and your enemies will not be able to stop you...............

 

You're not the only one Tesla. There is too much historical evidence that as prevalent freedom is, there is also a similar movement for authoritarianism.

The problem with freedom is that people become complacent, they stop raising their children with their values, they stop asking questions like "Why?" and they are wholly focused with consumption or paying their debts for consumption.

If people really believe that freedom has been now and forever, and can never be lost, then sadly they are very naive and ignorant of history.

 

Did you know that Kiefer Sutherland is in the Glendale Country jail wearing a orange jump juit and eating corn flakes. He was began serving 48 days on December 5.

I guess the systems is trying to show the little guy what will happen to them if they don't comply.

 

I heard. Damn, what is it with these celebrities going to jail for stupid stuff like getting DUIs? Michelle Rodriguez is in the slammer to, she just reported three days ago, but Sutherland is luckier than her, he is only serving 48 days, and Michelle will be in the slammer for six months, all because she likes to drink and drive, among other things.

I never understand how people can have so much money and be so dumb...........but then again, I have to remember that having wealth doesn't automatically make you wise......

I think when people become rich, some of them don't know what to do with all their new found wealth, so they resort to drinking and drugs. I always look down on these people, because they are bad role models, and they are not using their riches for anything meaningful.

Most people want to be rich just so they can buy a whole lot of stuff, but what does it all mean in the end? It is just a bunch of junk. Me, I want to be a builder, someone who creates things, someone who benefits humanity. I think this is what separates guys like Einstein and the Wright Brothers from a lot of people, these guys actually build stuff. Long after they're gone, they still have a legacy.

It reminds me of the legend of Alexander the Great's mother Olympias. She was given a type of vision in which she could make a choice on whether her son would live a life of luxury, then die and be forgotten, or live a life of hardship, but have his name go down in history. She chose for him to live the life of hardship..........and when I think about it, this is a tough decision to make, the story of Alexander's mother is profound to anyone who really reads between the line. The biggest question is.......which one would you have chose?

 

That's real crazy the star of '24' locked up. I would think that a celebrity would either have a limo waiting for them or they want not drink at the party.

People are really stupid and are like pack rats with stuff. Though luxury is o.k. If you limit it to a percentage of your income yourgood. Like if someones makes 2000 a month and spends $200, it's the same as someone making $100,000 a month and speding $10,000. It's all good.

But trying to spend like the US goverment and being a "shopping list" spender will make you go broke fast.

Just have a budget and then cross some junk off the list when you over budget. Don't take out the fanatasic plastic as they call it in Morocco.

 

Dude , all those formulas for figuring out wealth really don't mean anything other then interesting conversation

As soon as you start taking factors in like income and expense of living you can skew it to not make sense, for example

I made less this year then last year, so my income vs assets ratio is now different, does that make me more wealthy?

My friend is a laid off construction worker who sleeps on a junk boat in the harbor for free and has no income, if he comes into 3k or whatever by those formulas he will be wealthy, he will have assets many times his income , because his income is almost zero, will he be wealthy or just a bum who sleeps on a wrecked boat?

Maybe they should rename the book you read "How to pretend you are wealthy when you have low ass income"

Anything is possible, someone could buy a winning lotter ticket with only $1

That is not normal, half of that just depends on current market conditions not even skill, sounds like someone has been watching too much television

The guaranteed rate of return is like 5%, once you go over that there is chance of losing money

To me , "wealthy" would mean you don't have to worry about anything. You can have a high standard of living without having to work at all.

 

This isn't true. James Sun is only one of many entrepreneurs who started out with only a small amount of money, and built it into a fortune. I believe the founder of Staples also started off with $5,000, and turned it into a $500 million dollar business. The success of James Sun isn't a fluke, if you read about him, he is a successful entrepreneur who was nearly accepted by Donald Trump, and in all honestly, I think James Sun is too good for Trump, he was better than the winner, Stefanie Schaeffer. Jeff Bezos, Billionaire founder of Amazon, also started in a garage I believe, and Mark Cuban started small to.

Anyone can take $5,000 and buy clothes, a TV, or some stupid gadgets and be broke. A man who takes $5,000 and uses it to start a business is not ordinary, and his success is not defined by luck, or the market. Hell, in business, it is possible to create your own luck. Mark Cuban, Jeff Bezos, and James Sun, these are men you could hand $5,000 to, and they would quadruple it. The average joe on the street, he would just spend it and be broke, and that is why the average person has nothing, and these guys are all rich.

Any moron can go on a spending spree. A genius is a man or woman who can take that money and double, triple, or quadruple it. This is the highest form of financial genius that can be obtained, and when you think about how you can invest your money for a return rather than spending it, you immediately start thinking like a millionaire or a billionaire.

I had a buddy of mine once who said the same thing. He implied that he wanted to be wealthy so "he wouldn't have to work." I immediately knew by his statement that he would never build wealth. Becoming wealthy is all about hard work. You work hard and work smart. The harder you work, the luckier you get.

Anybody who wants to get rich so they can sit on their ass all day and live in luxury and do nothing will never become rich, because they are too damn lazy to ever put in the elbow grease and take the risk necessary to build an empire. This is the mindset of the typical person. Like an egg, when the obstacles and pressures begin to mount, they crack.

Successful people work hard, damn hard. It is said that Napoleon Bonaparte would sometimes work 18 hour days without rest. When running campaigns, Lyndon B. Johnson worked so hard and furious that after he got elected, he had to be hospitalized. It is said that Tupac Shakur only slept 3 hours a night, and the great inventor Nikola Tesla, who my DP name is taken from, could go days on end without rest. These men understood hard work, and they worked smart, and they all have one thing in common: they all succeeded.

Unless you're ready to put in the type of hours and work that Johnson, Tesla, Shakur, and Bonaparte put into their work, you are not ready to achieve true success in this world. There is no such thing as half assing your way to success.

You took my comment out of context. When I talked about taking a small portion of that $30,000 and using it to create a fortune, I didn't mean that it should be compared to the lottery. There is a difference between a risk and a gamble, again, the typical person who is not well read does not get this.

The German General Rommel made a distinction between a risk and a gamble. You can rebound from a risk that doesn't work, you can turn the failure into a strength. A calculated risk is based on logic. A gamble is based on emotion, and when you gamble, you may not be able to recover if you lose.

Income has little to do with wealth. This is one of the most important lessons the book shows. The typical American thinks that a high income equals wealth.........it doesn't, if it does, why do 19% of people who make $100,000 per year live paycheck to paycheck?

The government taxes your income, not what you "have." This shows how powerful income is when compared to savings, though the two are connected, having money is always more powerful than just making lots of it.

I would rather have $200,000 than make $200,000. By having it, I'm financially more powerful than someone who only generates that amount annually.

 

there are tons of professional athletes in the world too, yet if you said you were going to be playing for the NBA shortly you would probably be wrong

not having to work is one of the best goals in the world in my opinion

so says you

Because they think they will always have that money coming int

lol, that is one of the dumbest things I ever heard. If you have 200k the odds of doubling it a year are extremely small. Yet if you work few years in the that job you could have more.

 

My comment only seems dumb because you don't understand strategic thinking, or finance for that matter. I worked at a bank, I can tell you that the typical American doesn't have anywhere near the money in the bank that they bring in per year. This means someone who makes $30,000, on average, won't even have half this amount, or $15,000 sitting in the bank.

This means that someone making $200,000 a year, on average, will only have a fraction of this money in the bank. You fail to consider the huge tax burden this person carries, as well as their luxury life style and large amounts of debt. A $200,000 income is not a lot when it is taxed, and when you have a huge mortgage with lots of debt, you eat out a lot, wear the most expensive clothes, have the latest gadgets, and you drive import luxury vehicles, send your kids to elite private schools, the list goes on. The $200,000 income gets eaten up quickly, only a fraction of it will be in your bank account, no where near $200,000.

The typical person who makes $200,000 per year falls under the category I described above. Now, if you HAVE $200,000, it is not subject to taxation, and you can earn a lot of interest on it. In fact, you can take small amounts of it to start multiple business ventures, perhaps becoming a Venture Capitalist or Angel Investor. You could turn the $200,000 into millions within a short time span.

That statement didn't come from me. In the Millionaire Next Door, a millionaire in the book made the comment, I was just referencing what he said. Based on my observations of people I know, and in my family, the person made this comment is correct. Everyone I've ever met or known who doesn't like the work, and who wants to be rich so they don't have to work, don't have anything in life, because they are not willing to work............they tend to party and goof off, and then waste time wondering why others are successful, and they are not...

If you're not wealthy, but you want to become wealthy, but you want to become wealthy because you don't want to work, is an oxymoron, and goes against common sense. If you look at most seriously successful people, such as Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Warren Buffet, and others, they love the work they do, they will probably work until the day the die, their work is their life.

What I think you really mean when you say you want to become rich so that you don't have to work, is that you're saying so you don't have to work at a job you don't like. But I think if you had your own business, or had a job you loved to do, maybe you would never stop working, because you would love what you do.

I disagree with this statement, and so does Napoleon Hill, the author of another book given to me by a wealthy man, called Think and Grow Rich. This books shows you that indeed, if you're have an obsession with being in the NBA, among other things, you will make it into the NBA. Luck and other factors have nothing to do with it. You should read Think and Grow Rich, it is a mind opening book.

 

Here are some quotes ferret which I've found on the Internet from author Napoleon Hill. I will past the quotes below

"Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

"A quitter never wins and a winner never quits."

"Success requires no explanations. Failure permits no alibis."

"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

"All impulses of thought have a tendency to clothe themselves in their physical equivalent"

If you understand the quotations above, you understand why I say that if you truly want to get into the NBA, or win the Nobel Prize, or achieve anything worthwhile in this world, it CAN be done.

The last quote is real deep, and I would take time to think about that quote, because it is extremely profound. He is basically saying that anything you imagine in your mind can be manifested into reality, no matter what it is. This essentially means that nothing that a man can imagine is impossible.

 

US and UK economy will never die.. its only a temporary problem for spending too much on war terrorism accuiring part of middle east etc..

GOD(Bhagwan Allah whatever u call him) has made USA UK(n majority of europe) AUS CANADA to be rich and its destiny..

No one on earth can change it..

its a temporary situation.. some changes in government or management and a leader who is 100% faithful to his countrymen will take america back to where it was

for USA its matter of 5-10 mins(months)

I am in south asia.. and i saw usa spend millions to my neighbouring country for a natural disaster..

What i see in cnn bbc and USA based tv programs.. i feel usa have never ending wealth and resources other then the oil..

its just that 2005 to 2010+ may be temporary bad for US economy.. but US ppl knows how to fight that.. and they will again bring back the glory and make the economy stronger and affordable for the masses..

 

I don't care what the typical American does
If I have salary of 200k I can almost guarantee I will have more saved in a few years then someone who started with a lump 200k sum

If you look at the top producing mutual funds of the last year and best ones maybe break 40%, if you think you can invest better then managers of those funds, I think you are probably delusional

Dude, interest is subject to taxation and "a lot" is pretty subjective

at 5% its 10k a year, the s & p 500 has 7 or 8% return for the year whats that 14-16k a year, it might take awhile to get to those millions you are talking about

I have my own business, I haven't worked for someone in like 4 or 5 years

no matter what you do you hate it after awhile, ask anyone with their own business

I used to love all this SEO, web design bullshit, but I am to the point now where I feel like I want to take a job teaching tourists how to snorkel or cutting bait on some fishing boat, anything to get of the the computer

working just sucks no matter what the job is

 

If you can guarantee that if you have a salary of $200,000, you can save more in a few years than someone who starts off with $200,000 then you must have amazing skills when it comes to saving money, and I'm not being sarcastic, I'm absolutely serious.

I did want to mention just one thing. I never said in my previous posts how much the person who started with $200,000 made per year. Aha! This is where you get into trouble. If you and I were playing a game of chess, I would be dangerously close to calling a checkmate now. You've put me a strong position.

Now, lets say you and I started a contest to see who could save the most amount of money in a few years, three years. You make $200,000 per year, and I already have $200,000, but I make $70,000 per year. In addition to the $200,000 I already have in my position, it just so happens that I'm a frugal guy, and of the $70,000 I bring in, after taxes, I still save, say, $25,000 a year. After three years, I would have $275,000. Do you think you could surpass me in three years? The math is against you. I should also note that I'm single with no children, now wife, a bachelor with no debt. Do you believe you could content with me and surpass me in three years? I won't say it is impossible, I don't know you or your abilities.

This discussion is fun, it is starting to become more and more like chess......................remember ferret, you specifically said in your post that you could have more saved in a few years than someone who already has $200,000, you do realize I already have a major jump start on you, right?

I think I would win, because in our hypothetical contest, I would not just save, I would invest and save at the same time, playing a combination of financial defense and offense. Indeed, there are financial investments out there that can give you a huge rate of return if you know where to look. Because I already hold a large amount of money, I can team up with a skilled investor who has a proven track record of high rates of returns, I could also buy online businesses that would allow me to expand my income far beyond $70,000, in three years, after interest earnings and business profits, my savings would definitely supersede $300,000 more than likely.

 

if it was chess you would have already lost

 

How? You didn't explain why I would lose. I already have $200,000 in our hypothetical contest, and it takes you 12 months to make $200,000, as you make the $200,000 you've got taxes and bills to pay. By the time you earned your $200,000(or less than $200,000, after taxes and bills), I would have already put away $25,000 in cash on top of the $200,000 I already have(after my taxes and bills). Do you honestly believe you could beat me, or anyone else who was in the same position as me, in a situation like this?

If our situation were reversed, I would admit defeat. I would clearly be able to see that, after taxes and bills, I would not be able to consistently out save you over a three year period. Mathematics proves me correct. I just went to http://www.moneychimp.com/features/tax_brackets.htm, and used the tax calculator on that site, and according to this calculator ferret, if you made $200,000 per year in 2007, you would have to pay $52,068 if you are single, so you would only have $147,932. This amount does not include your bills. But for the sake of simplicity, lets say that somehow you were able to save half this amount. This would mean you would save $73,966 per year(which is unlikely, because this would mean you would have no bills after taxes.)

Anyway, guess what? if you saved $73,966 for three years, starting from scratch, with no money, you would have $221,898. I would only pay $13,924 in taxes since I only make $70,000 per year, according to the calculator under the link. This means I could easily save $25,000 per year for three years(I could actually save more than this), and at the end of the three years, I would have $275,000, $53,102 more than you have, so I would be the winner.

I've showed, with simple mathematics, how someone with a lower income can defeat someone with a higher income, if they HAVE a large sum of money already. And when you use the formula from the Millionaire Next Door which I included in previous posts on this thread, you can even be more relatively wealthy than someone who makes and has more money than you depending on your age.

 

You know what, this made me remember something. When i was a kid, there was this rich dude who was working his arse off the whole day, i mean the whole day literally, and the dude had friggin billions. I was like.. why in the hell does he work so much when he's richer than Africa? Wasn't the ultimate goal what he already had? lol Made no sense to me at that time.

Hahaha rofl you're not alone

 

A lot of people today confuse investment with speculation. They are clearly two different things.

I thought the sun never set on the British Empire because God couldn't trust them in the dark?

 

ron paul supporters still tearing down their country?

 

Yes the fed prints money but it doesn't lend the money to the federal government, federal and state governments get money though taxes and what they are short through issuing government bonds.