The greedy rich

[A.J. Holst]

So, the greed of the rich is repressing the poor.

If you take wealth that you haven't earned, if you think someone else should pay more so you pay less, if you think you are entitled to someone else's stuff, is the one taking demonstrating greed as well?

The rich are getting more wealthy at the expense of the poor and on the backs of their workers.

[KahrMan]

Huh?  Not exactly following what you are saying.  Are you saying all rich people are greedy?

[Ugly]

The only people that take wealth they haven't earned are crooks and politicians. That's why many pols are against the death penalty, in case their actions catch up to them. 

If someone has a business, it's to make money. Or to satisfy a need to provide a service or good. 

Your narrative sounds like a liberal bumper sticker. 

[JAB]

14 minutes ago, Ugly said:

The only people that take wealth they haven't earned are crooks and politicians. That's why many pols are against the death penalty, in case their actions catch up to them. 

If someone has a business, it's to make money. Or to satisfy a need to provide a service or good. 

Your narrative sounds like a liberal bumper sticker. 

I don't know - I read it that he is saying the problem can't be summed up on a bumper sticker.  Instead, it isn't a clear cut issue.  When the working man keeps getting less and less (including not getting raises because the company 'can't afford it') but the CEOs keep getting their golden parachutes, get their bonuses even when the government has to bail the company out and can still take advantage of loopholes and not-technically-illegal tax breaks that none of those working stiffs would ever have access to because they will never make enough money to use them then there IS a problem and it isn't 'liberal', 'communist' or 'socialist' to say so.  After all, who is really earning the money - as in every dime the company makes, basically - the guy in the head office or the guy who is actually in the field providing the service or on the assembly line producing the goods?  I'd say it is a little of both, actually, but the company could probably continue without the CEO and a couple of the other high-level administrators as long as there were still enough people in positions to run the daily business.  How long could the company operate without the aforementioned people who are actually providing the service or producing the goods?  I'd say not very long.  Even if they are replaced by other people it would then be those other people who are doing the work that keeps the company in business.  So, then, why are CEOs and so on deemed as being so much more 'valuable' - as reflected by yearly salaries that may equal more than the people who are actually doing the work that drives the company will see in a lifetime?  That is a problem. 

In a perfect world the company, itself, would see this imbalance and take at least some steps to rectify it.  However, as long as people - greedy people who are greedy because they are people and who can indulge their greed because of their positions of power - are running those companies that will not happen.  So, what is the answer?  Government regulations forcing more equity?  Possibly - but that would open the door to other problems.  It is kind of funny that the whole reason allowing corporations to 'self-regulate' with regards to these issues doesn't work is the same as the reason communism and socialism will never work - because you have to have people in charge and the people in charge will almost always use those positions to make sure that they are 'more equal' than everyone else.

Edited May 3, 2017 by JAB

[Ugly]

Geez.

i disagree. If you want to make the money of a CEO, strive to be one and become one. 

If you want to get govt mandated raises and a "living wage" for doing menial work that doesn't take a special skill set, prepare to be replaced by a robot or machine and wait for your handout. 

Crooks and politicians!

I label those lacking ethics and the moral incapacity to do the right thing for the right reason crooks as well. 

[A.J. Holst]

I have a very liberal friend who is all about your money.

He constantly spouts the greedy rich / exploited worker schtick.

Propaganda at its finest, tell the same story over and over.

I have friends and relatives waaay better off than me financially, I don't covet what they have, what they earn or what they inherited.

I don't think they're greedy because they want to retain what they have or earn more than they have. 

Fair share and the public good.

Who decides what my fair share is, aren't I the public and why am I not asked what is good.

Maybe if my 5 figure tax bill was lower, I would be able to be less greedy and increase my charitable contributions.

[monkeylizard]

56 minutes ago, JAB said:

So, then, why are CEOs and so on deemed as being so much more 'valuable' - as reflected by yearly salaries that may equal more than the people who are actually doing the work that drives the company will see in a lifetime? 

The simple answer is scarcity. Rare things are worth more than plentiful things. Ditch diggers are plentiful. CEOs with financial sense, leadership skills, and political connections are rare.

The complete answer is far more nuanced than that, but in general, the principal holds true.

Edited May 3, 2017 by monkeylizard

[Erik88]

I firmly believe the folks that bitch about the rich do it purely out of jealousy. I work with a guy who was complaining about CEO salaries and was stating that by eliminating those salaries it would greatly help the employees. I looked up the Wal-Mart CEO salary, divided it out among the 2.3 million employees and it came out to $8.43 per person.

 

[DWARREN123]

Many are greedy, some are rich.

The ones who complain the most don't work hard enough to become rich.

[nightrunner]

It's funny, when I read the OP and got to the part about taking what you didn't earn, I immediately assumed he was talking about all the worthless scum taking government handouts and not contributing to society. I guess that's not as big a deal as big bad corporations, huh?

 

The great thing about America is that we aren't stuck with just complaining about what we don't have and someone else has more. We are all able to further ourselves if we choose to. I am a blue collar worker and have zero desire to have a corner office and 7 figure salary and wear a suit every day. But I could if I wanted to put forth the effort to do so.

The rich are rich for a reason, they ( or their family) have contributed to society in one way or another at some point in time in a measurable way. If you want to be rich, chase your dreams and live your life to the fullest. Hell, right now we have a guy who started with a real estate investment and is now sitting in the White House. If nothing else, that proves you can go as far as your ambition and determination allows you to.

[bersaguy]

I think when I think about the Rich and Greedy I look at the large corporations a lot more that I do the small business owners. The last job I held before going into retirement do to health issues I was employed in a Mom and Pop operation that had probably 25 employees. I worked for them for almost 12 years and it was the best paying job I ever had that also included paid  family insurance and vacations. The reason I made such a great income for those 12 years was because the Mom and Pop went out of their way to make sure they took care of their employees by having a Profit Sharing Program and each month everyone got a bonus check along with their weekly wages. I have heard of a few large corporations that at one time did offer programs similar to that but I have not heard about any of them in years. It is hard to find any large corporations that want to pay anything except the bare minimum they can get away with and have just about stopped offering any benefits. Now with all of this said. I think President Trump wants to bring jobs back on shore is a good thing but my concern is are there going to be any real Americans willing to accept the jobs that come back? I think filling the jobs may be as hard as getting them back on shore or maybe even harder unless the companies are willing to give people a reason to come to work for them.  I don't see minimum wages offered getting it done.................jmho

[RED333]

4 hours ago, Gotthegoods said:

I don't covet what they have

This is the whole issue with the left, they want everybody's money in the worst way.

[Scorpion Equalizer]

The greedy liberal democrats would steel the nickels off a dead man's eyes. They love the death tax.

[MacGyver]

I have a lot of thoughts about this, but I'll stick to a few for right now - because truthfully at 2200CDT on a Wednesday evening I own and run a small business - and I'm still here, today.  I haven't had a guaranteed payday on Friday in a long, long time.  So, here I am.

Both of our political parties have their hands in our pockets. This isn't a "conservative"/"liberal" thing.  It's an American political thing.  Find more than a handful of our 536 elected representatives in Washington that actually understand what it takes to actually create and sustain a job.  You'll be hard pressed. And, I say that as a small business owner who knows the extraordinary effort it takes to go from zero to one employee.

I am successful.  Truthfully, I am rich.  Maybe not by every metric, but certainly by most. I've been all over the world and I know what poverty looks like.  I don't have to worry about much.  Every time I open the refrigerator, it's like I've won the freaking lottery.  There's good food in there, and I don't have to worry about whether or not it's going to make me sick, or whether there's still going to be some in there tomorrow.

Success is a funny thing, though.  I work hard.  I work really hard.  But, as it turns out, that's not the single biggest indicator of success.  In America today, the single biggest indicator of success is the level at which you can tolerate risk.  And, as it turns out, I can tolerate a fair bit.  Some of that is the product of decisions I made earlier in my life, but a lot of that is also luck and privilege.  You can discount it, but sitting where I sit today as the managing director of one company and the CEO of a new company, those last two factors are significant.  What plays into those?  

A non-exhaustive list off top of my head:

• I come from a two-parent home
• I never once worried about my safety at home or whether or not I would have food to eat in the morning
• I went to good schools where teachers knew my name, cared if I did well, and by and large actually knew something about the subject they were teaching
• I graduated from high school
• I graduated from college with no debt - scholarships and the fact that my parents were able to fund the rest of my education
• I went to graduate school
• I started a little business with a couple of friends in the 90's that was in the right place at the right time
• We met some people who took a liking to us who happened to worth a whole lot of money - and they mentored us
• I waited until I was married to have kids
• My wife worked while I got my first company off the ground - and she had good benefits
• I'm white - discount that if you want - but I walked into a bank that I've never been into in my life today and the bank president walked me out when I left
• On the rare occasion that the police come into my neighborhood, they always address me as sir.
• I've always had reliable transportation - or lived in a place that had public transportation so good you didn't need it
• My family has not gotten any serious illness or disease
• My wife is able to parent with me so that I don't have to worry about childcare so I can go to work - it doesn't even cross my mind - if my schedule changes, it's not a huge deal.

Can you take away one or more of those things and still be successful? Sure.  But, you're going to have to work a lot harder at it than I do - and probably for a lot longer.  The fact of the matter is that now, at 42, I can start a brand new company, and it's likely that it'll be successful.  I'm good at what I do, but the only reason I'm starting it is because I have both an opportunity AND the ability at this point in my life to take advantage of it.

As to a CEO having a huge compensation plan while stepping on the backs of employees, there are some giant problems in America today.  Frankly, the economy is being looted by financiers.  So many CEO's today aren't adding much value - they're just in a position to be able to extract as many assets of value from the companies they're heading as they can.  See Sears, JC Penney, Radio Shack, Kmart, et al right now if you need examples.

I cannot speak for everyone, but I can tell you how I see it.  I'm pretty generous with my employees. I look at it in two ways.  First, you can have a large piece of a small pie, or a smaller piece of a much larger pie.  I try pretty hard to bring more people to the table and give equity away generously.  In doing so, yes, I own a smaller percentage of the company.  But, there are a lot of people who suddenly have an equity stake in it doing well.  What do you think they're going to do with that?  My experience shows that they work a lot harder to create value.  And, having been through it a couple of times, instead of having 80% of something that's not worth that much, I have maybe 25% of something that's worth 10 times as much.  In my experience, it works out better for everyone.  

I also look at it from a Biblical perspective - actually an ancient Jewish perspective.  In the 23rd Psalm, there's the idea of the Lord filling a cup until it overflows.  In the ancient Jewish tradition, there was no idea of individual blessing/salvation - it was all community based.  So, when your cup overflows it's not wasted - instead it flows out into the community around you.  And, everyone is better off because of it.

Sure, I don't much care for having the government tell me what to do with my money.  I would just assume they left me the heck alone.  But, that is coming from a position of privilege.

The truth of the matter is that while I'd love it if our churches, communities and civic organizations took care of our local communities - we suck at it.  And as we embrace the politics of 'the other' over the gospel, it's getting worse.  I can think back to the flood in 2010.  We have a major church in Nashville that was built with the intention of being a disaster relief shelter.  But, when the time came to put it to use, they didn't - because it would be disruptive to services, and liability, and insurance, and safety, and our kids, and whatever...

Every last one of us depends on the government for way too much.  And, that's unlikely to change anytime soon.  I grumble and moan every time I write a big check to the government for taxes.  But, as individuals we've become way too dependent.  And it's not like our churches are going to step up.  Western individualism has run completely amok in American christianity.  

So, it's a question that doesn't have a discrete answer that fits into a neat little partisan box.  Do I "deserve" more because I work hard for it? Maybe?  I probably deserve more than the Instagram starlets.  But there are plenty of single moms that work every bit as hard as I do every day as vet techs or as medical assistants or teachers or at Target for that matter.  There are women at the Target up the street that I know for a fact are there from open until close most days.  

I am in a position by luck, privilege and effort that allows me to tolerate a lot of risk - and that will more often than not lead to success.  That's the easy part.  It gets a lot harder from there.

 

[KahrMan]

Your assessment of being able to tolerate risk as it relates to success is spot on. 

 

Well said. 

[MacGyver]

1 minute ago, KahrMan said:

Your assessment of being able to tolerate risk as it relates to success is spot on. 

 

Well said. 

Spoken by someone who knows something about the subject.  Appreciated. 

[Omega]

 

1 hour ago, MacGyver said:

I have a lot of thoughts about this, but I'll stick to a few for right now - because truthfully at 2200CDT on a Wednesday evening I own and run a small business - and I'm still here, today.  I haven't had a guaranteed payday on Friday in a long, long time.  So, here I am.

Both of our political parties have their hands in our pockets. This isn't a "conservative"/"liberal" thing.  It's an American political thing.  Find more than a handful of our 536 elected representatives in Washington that actually understand what it takes to actually create and sustain a job.  You'll be hard pressed. And, I say that as a small business owner who knows the extraordinary effort it takes to go from zero to one.

I am successful.  Truthfully, I am rich.  Maybe not by every metric, but certainly by most. I've been all over the world and I know what poverty looks like.  I don't have to worry about much.  Every time I open the refrigerator, it's like I've won the freaking lottery.  There's good food in there, and I don't have to worry about whether or not it's going to make me sick, or whether there's still going to be some in there tomorrow.

Success is a funny thing, though.  I work hard.  I work really hard.  But, as it turns out, that's not the single biggest indicator of success.  In America today, the single biggest indicator of success is the level at which you can tolerate risk.  And, as it turns out, I can tolerate a fair bit.  Some of that is the product of decisions I made earlier in my life, but a lot of that is also luck and privilege.  You can discount it, but sitting where I sit today as the managing director of one company and the CEO of a new company, those last two factors are significant.  What plays into those?  

A non-exhaustive list off top of my head:

• I come from a two-parent home
• single parent home 
• I never once worried about my safety at home or whether or not I would have food to eat in the morning
• As a child, i remember having butter sandwiches  
• I went to good schools where teachers knew my name, cared if I did well, and by and large actually knew something about the subject they were teaching
• Standard public school, average kid, average teachers
• I graduated from high school
• Dropped out in 10th, got my GED, joined the Army.
• I graduated from college with no debt - scholarships and the fact that my parents were able to fund the rest of my education
• Military helped with my Associates Degree and all but $10k for my BS
• I went to graduate school
• Nope
• I started a little business with a couple of friends in the 90's that was in the right place at the right time
• Nope
• We met some people who took a liking to us who happened to worth a whole lot of money - and they mentored us
• I waited until I was married to have kids
• Had two before 18, last at 20.
• My wife worked while I got my first company off the ground - and she had good benefits
• Wife stayed home, until last kid was almost school age, we paid more for a sitter than she made
• I'm white - discount that if you want - but I walked into a bank that I've never been into in my life today and the bank president walked me out when I left
• Hispanic, but have met and shook hands with 3 POTUS.
• On the rare occasion that the police come into my neighborhood, they always address me as sir.
• Same here for the most part,  but less formal.
• I've always had reliable transportation - or lived in a place that had public transportation so good you didn't need it
• Not so much, but I knew how to turn a wrench.
• My family has not gotten any serious illness or disease
• Mine...immediate family, nothing serious or costly. 
• My wife is able to parent with me so that I don't have to worry about childcare so I can go to work - it doesn't even cross my mind - if my schedule changes, it's not a huge deal.
• Household six (wife) took care of the home front until I retired...many deployments. 

Can you take away one or more of those things and still be successful? Sure.  But, you're going to have to work a lot harder at it than I do - and probably for a lot longer.  The fact of the matter is that now, at 42, I can start a brand new company, and it's likely that it'll be successful.  I'm good at what I do, but the only reason I'm starting it is because I have both an opportunity AND the ability at this point in my life to take advantage of it.

As to a CEO having a huge compensation plan while stepping on the backs of employees, there are some giant problems in America today.  Frankly, the economy is being looted by financiers.  So many CEO's today aren't adding much value - they're just in a position to be able to extract as many assets of value from the companies they're heading as they can.  See Sears, JC Penney, Radio Shack, Kmart, et al right now if you need examples.

I cannot speak for everyone, but I can tell you how I see it.  I'm pretty generous with my employees. I look at it in two ways.  First, you can have a large piece of a small pie, or a smaller piece of a much larger pie.  I try pretty hard to bring more people to the table and give equity away generously.  In doing so, yes, I own a smaller percentage of the company.  But, there are a lot of people who suddenly have an equity stake in it doing well.  What do you think they're going to do with that?  My experience shows that they work a lot harder to create value.  And, having been through it a couple of times, instead of having 80% of something that's not worth that much, I have maybe 25% of something that's worth 10 times as much.  In my experience, it works out better for everyone.  

I also look at it from a Biblical perspective - actually an ancient Jewish perspective.  In the 23rd Psalm, there's the idea of the Lord filling a cup until it overflows.  In the ancient Jewish tradition, there was no idea of individual blessing/salvation - it was all community based.  So, when your cup overflows it's not wasted - instead it flows out into the community around you.  And, everyone is better off because of it.

Sure, I don't much care for having the government tell me what to do with my money.  I just assume they left me the heck alone.  But, that is coming from a position of privilege.

The truth of the matter is that while I'd love it if our churches, communities and civic organizations took care of our local communities - we suck at it.  And as we embrace the politics of 'the other' over the gospel, it's getting worse.  I can think back to the flood in 2010.  We have a major church in Nashville that was built with the intention of being a disaster relief shelter.  But, when the time came to put it to use, they didn't - because it would be disruptive to services, and liability, and insurance, and safety, and our kids, and whatever...

Every last one of us depends on the government for way too much.  And, that's unlikely to change anytime soon.  I grumble and moan every time I write a big check to the government for taxes.  But, as individuals we've become way too dependent.  And it's not like our churches are going to step up.  Western individualism has run completely amok in American christianity.  

So, it's a question that doesn't have a discrete answer that fits into a neat little partisan box.  Do I "deserve" more because I work hard for it? Maybe?  I probably deserve more than the Instagram starlets.  But there are plenty of single moms that work every bit as hard as I do every day as vet techs or as medical assistants or teachers or at Target for that matter.  There are women at the Target up the street that I know for a fact are there from open until close most days.  

I am in a position by luck, privilege and effort that allows me to tolerate a lot of risk - and that will more often than not lead to success.  That's the easy part.  It gets a lot harder from there.

 

Wow, looking at your list I'm your polar opposite for the most part.  But by my yardstick, I'm doing well, I'm retired military, and my body is not so broken that I can't hold down a job.  Not rich by any means, but so far at 52 I have no monetary worries.  Privileged? hardly, but I never let that stand in my way. 

Edited May 4, 2017 by Omega
Speeling

[Erik88]

8 hours ago, KahrMan said:

Your assessment of being able to tolerate risk as it relates to success is spot on. 

 

Well said. 

I'd have to agree but I never really made the connection until now. I've never been a risk taker and I believe I've probably held myself back because of it. It's weird, I'm conscious of this "flaw" but still not brave enough to change it. 

Thanks @MacGyver for this post. You've given me some things to think about.

[MacGyver]

7 hours ago, Omega said:

Wow, looking at your list I'm your polar opposite for the most part.  But by my yardstick, I'm doing well, I'm retired military, and my body is not so broken that I can't hold down a job.  Not rich by any means, but so far at 52 I have no monetary worries.  Privileged? hardly, but I never let that stand in my way. 

You've definitely got my sincerest admiration - though like me, I sincerely doubt you do much to seek that affirmation.  Your service means - if I'm doing my math right since the first Gulf War -  that you've seen more hardship - both overseas and at home while you've been deployed than most CEO's in a corner office will ever experience.  Your story is just as relevant as theirs. 

One is valued more in society and by our political class, though.  And, that's a shame.

[Ronald_55]

@MacGyver 

Your post has lots of good points. I turn 42 this year too. My life has been different in several ways even thought it seems like we started in the same place. My Dad worked hard and long to make sure we did not feel poor and my Mom stayed home after my younger sibling was born to make sure we got to and from school, had homework help, and a hot supper. I graduated high school at the top of my class and got my Bachelor degree. I worked an outside job and lived cheap in college because my parents couldn't cover the tuition left over after my scholarships and on campus work-study. At the end of 4 years, I could not fathom going farther because I was tired from juggling school work, my job, and the work hours demanded by my scholarship.  I did graduate owing nothing though. Now, I work hard like my Dad and Papaw showed me, but I seem to be drawn to companies that end up having layoffs or close outright. That has really hurt me income wise because each time is a setback in pay to start somewhere new. And between jobs any thing that is in savings get cannibalized to pay the bills.  So my family is only as good as it is because my wife works and has been at the same place for a lot of years. Even though we gripe about her being looked over for raises and promotions at times, the normal raise structure there has kept her income slowly, but consistently growing. So she is the main breadwinner when the numbers get tallied up.

I had always wanted to start my own business, but now see that I would not be comfortable with that risk because of all the past instances where my job loss caused the family to have to sacrifice. My Dad was laid off a few times, once as long as a year, but I never remember feeling strain at home about money. I can't say the same about when I have been out of work. I do the finances and I have been keenly aware of how close we were to living out of the car a few times. So I avoid risk so that I do not have to experience that again. My kids are older now and they would be very aware of how bad things are if we got back into that shape. 

[MacGyver]

23 minutes ago, Erik88 said:

I'd have to agree but I never really made the connection until now. I've never been a risk taker and I believe I've probably held myself back because of it. It's weird, I'm conscious of this "flaw" but still not brave enough to change it. 

Thanks @MacGyver for this post. You've given me some things to think about.

The data is pretty clear on this stuff.  There are two consistent factors that are most present in cases where a family achieves financial stability in America today.  They are:

1. Someone in the family unit has gotten as much education as they could
2. They've waited until they're married to have kids

If you want a surefire formula - the data shows that these two metrics are about as close as you can get in America today.  Even then, you're still playing some odds.  The risks of health calamity are always present.  Health problems can bankrupt a family.

As to risk taking, you're still in a pretty decent position.  You're young (still under 30?), no kids(I think), and you're married so you have two incomes and as a family unit you get 336 hours in a week instead of just 168.  You're in a position where you can tolerate some risk and the consequences of missing some of those assumptions simply aren't as dire.

I just got accepted to one of the major startup accelerators with my new company.  I didn't think they'd accept a 42 year old single founder when my competition is a bunch of 22 year old Stanford graduates.  I have a lot more experience than they do, but they're in a position to tolerate a lot more risk.  The data shows that the odds are in their favor.  Most startups will fail.  That's a known fact, and it's accounted for in the market right now.  Why do people keep investing - because the consequences of being wrong are simply lower when you're in your 20's, and some of those folks are likely to take that experience and turn it around into a new venture that succeeds. 

Happy to talk about it sometime if you like.

[MacGyver]

8 minutes ago, Ronald_55 said:

@MacGyver 

Your post has lots of good points. I turn 42 this year too. My life has been different in several ways even thought it seems like we started in the same place. My Dad worked hard and long to make sure we did not feel poor and my Mom stayed home after my younger sibling was born to make sure we got to and from school, had homework help, and a hot supper. I graduated high school at the top of my class and got my Bachelor degree. I worked an outside job and lived cheap in college because my parents couldn't cover the tuition left over after my scholarships and on campus work-study. At the end of 4 years, I could not fathom going farther because I was tired from juggling school work, my job, and the work hours demanded by my scholarship.  I did graduate owing nothing though. Now, I work hard like my Dad and Papaw showed me, but I seem to be drawn to companies that end up having layoffs or close outright. That has really hurt me income wise because each time is a setback in pay to start somewhere new. And between jobs any thing that is in savings get cannibalized to pay the bills.  So my family is only as good as it is because my wife works and has been at the same place for a lot of years. Even though we gripe about her being looked over for raises and promotions at times, the normal raise structure there has kept her income slowly, but consistently growing. So she is the main breadwinner when the numbers get tallied up.

I had always wanted to start my own business, but now see that I would not be comfortable with that risk because of all the past instances where my job loss caused the family to have to sacrifice. My Dad was laid off a few times, once as long as a year, but I never remember feeling strain at home about money. I can't say the same about when I have been out of work. I do the finances and I have been keenly aware of how close we were to living out of the car a few times. So I avoid risk so that I do not have to experience that again. My kids are older now and they would be very aware of how bad things are if we got back into that shape. 

It's interesting, and maybe it's a direction we can go in this thread, but if you're in you're early forties like me, you and I inhabit a different world and economy than our parents and grandparents did.

There's a bootstrapped version of my story that I could tell.  It's relevant, but it's definitely not the whole story.  There are a couple of points in there where if I'm being intellectually honest, it comes into focus, though.  My mom went back to work when I graduated from elementary school.  Her dream was to send my sister and I to a private high school, and she did.  She took a job as a teaching assistant in a special education classroom.  She had good benefits, but her salary was never that high.  She was able to send both my sister and I to high school on that salary though.  That wouldn't happen today - at least not in Nashville or Atlanta where I grew up.

My parents wanted and were able to cover the difference between what scholarships covered and what the tuition actually was for both my sister and I to go to college.  Looking back now, I see how much they did without to make that happen.  Graduating without debt put me in a position to have a lot more flexibility early in my career.  That's a lot more difficult today, too.  For my middle-middle class family growing up, I see what a stretch that was, and my tuition then was literally 25% of what it would be today.  They would not have been able to provide me with the same opportunity in 2017.

There are things that definitely work to our favor in 2017.  Memory, processing power and storage have all basically become commoditized.  An Amazon Web Services account coupled with a Pluralsight account and a year's worth of nights and weekends can have just about anyone with an idea in a position to start a side business.

This is the small business owner in me talking, but there are some inconsistencies in a market that's dominated by giant corporations.  Figure it like this - anywhere there's an 800-pound gorilla, there are necessarily some really unhappy customers.  Figure out how to serve that small segment better and you can feed yourself.

[A.J. Holst]

If you want to set yourself up to be an owner and not a worker, save every nickel you can.

If you want to be a wealthy worker, save every nickel you can.

Don't live the American Dream on credit, don't think eating out for lunch and dinner multiple times a week is a good investment, cut out legal sin (excessive alcohol, tobacco and partying) and don't gamble with the rent or milk money.

Designer brands (of anything)...if the extra cost equates to greater quality or longevity, go for it. If it is more important to show the tag, well player, you've been played.

I come from highly educated family but did not complete college.

I learned from that environment one must work and invest quality time to achieve whatever level of success I wanted to achieve.

To Mac's point, want to compete with the 800 pound gorilla? What are you doing as an owner or worker to cause the consumer to drive past the competition to buy and keep buying from you? 

Be Amazing, be Exceptional, be your Best...both in your professional life AND AND YOUR HOME LIFE. Don't leave it all on the professional field, you have to play a double header every day, at work and at home

Edited May 4, 2017 by Gotthegoods

[MP5_Rizzo]

I'm really trying to figure this one out.  I sense some anger or jealousy.  Are people like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates but not limited to these two only, greedy rich or are they brilliant businessmen?

[gregintenn]

I've gone about it from a totally different direction from MacGyver. I took the path of least resistance. A slow , but more sure path to financial independence if you will.  Although I am not averse to risk, my wife is. We've both worked hard and advanced in our jobs to the point where we make a very comfortable living, and are on track to retire at a very early age. Perhaps then, I can talk her into taking a more adventurous path.

As always, MacGyver has many good points to ponder in his post. A stable family, and I'll add, a family that promotes a good work ethic and the importance of education, gives a young person a huge leg up on the competition.

About the only thing I disagree with him on is the white privilege part. There's no reason, real or perceived, that a minority cannot achieve success with hard work and ambition. In many ways, current government regulations stack the odds in their favor. I will say that far too many minorities aren't raised in the a fore mentioned stable, two parent household.

I've tried, and hope and pray, that we've done a decent job raising our children with the necessary tools to become successful.