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America has become a HUGE scam
03-06-2014, 12:44 AM
There is some sheer stupidity being floated around in some cases here. The phrase "you can't get ahead unless you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth."
I grew up in one of those neighborhoods where the 1% live. Of the children in the 2 streets in our "court," not one other than myself graduated university within 6 years. A couple drop outs of university. A couple who are on pace to take 8+ years to make it. Not one of them making a wage above 40k. A couple girls with kids before they were 22. Many of them have this don't give a fuck attitude and put no effort into anything. It astonishes me. I'd say if anything there's going to be a lot of children born into rich families that will fall backwards. While many people born in the middle class will have that extra drive to make it rich.
People will then say but they'll inherit a lot of money. It's a lot easier to blow through money then it is to make money. If you don't develop the skills to make money there's a very good chance you'll blow it. See lottery winners.
The problem people have is self-selection. No one is really rich until 30+ and usually 40+ unless they are a) on TV or b) sold a business or c) inheritance.
This is simply due to the fact it takes time to build wealth. You have perhaps 1 compounding period from 22-30. Then another from 30-38, another 38-45 or so. Money compounds over time. Hence, why moving social classes isn't likely to occur in ones 20s or even their 30s. Look at the Forbes rich list. It reads almost like an obituary. 92,80, 83, 78...ages of the people in it. They've had many compounding cycles to take advantage of by that point.
You can become a millionaire never making more than 30 thousand a year. A lot of it comes down to life choices. The rich don't feel the need to look rich. (Outside the extremely rich, or the get rich quick types (athletes) Whereas nearly everyone who isn't rich has it engraved in their mind that they need to look successful. How do they do this? buy a house they can hardly afford, a car that's well beyond their income level, expensive clothing etc. This leaves them with no real opportunity for climbing the social pyramid as they are leveraged to the gills in depreciating and under-performing assets.
This is even more magnified in places where people are truly poor. My girlfriends in Cuba probably spend 80% of their incomes on clothes...when what they should be doing is saving that money for a few years and starting a private business. I've showed them the math and within 2 years with me they could easily save 3+k (enough for them to start a business there that can make them an income of 300+ a month quickly. keep in mind this can keep on being scaled until they are making thousands) which is more than triple what they make outside of my help. It's beyond them though. They just keep spending the minute they have money in their hands. We exhibit the principles here just we have more access to money.
You don't have to be all that intelligent to make a good living. On 80k you could save 40k a year if you really wanted to. If you did that and invested you should become a millionaire within 10 years or so. After that you may very well make more a year on your investments than your salary.
Everyone has an opportunity to be successful. Sure it's easier for some. Who cares. Make the most of what you have cause 99% of people aren't. They are contempt with mediocrity and blame stuff like taxes for there lack of success / achieving their dreams. Mediocrity is a mind set.
It's all a mindset.
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America has become a HUGE scam
03-06-2014, 01:14 AM
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America has become a HUGE scam
03-06-2014, 01:21 AM
Save your complaining for the things worth complaining about, like rising obesity in our women. See, that is the real problem facing American. American men that work hard and fight for our country, most men that work, are having to come home to beached whales. It is no wonder there is an erectile dysfunction epidemic.
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America has become a HUGE scam
03-06-2014, 01:24 AM
When people start complaining about "materialism", I just assume they're broke.
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America has become a HUGE scam
03-06-2014, 01:48 AM
LOL, this thread really pissed some people off. My bad. Maybe I should not have written my OP in such a one sided way. Anyway, definitely the America No. 1! crowd gets PO'd at anything remotely negative said about beloved Amerika. It's an interesting thing to see...
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America has become a HUGE scam
03-06-2014, 01:52 AM
I hate boot strap stories.
There is your attitude, and then there is reality.
You can walk with all the alpha swagger in the world, but that doesn't mean shit when you are in a dark alley with 3 guys who want to see your blood.
To borrow a quote from the fight game: everyone has a plan, until they get hit.
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America has become a HUGE scam
03-06-2014, 03:26 AM
Wherever you go in the world, your problems will go with you.
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America has become a HUGE scam
03-06-2014, 09:28 AM
The dude is just a troll. Complains all day no value add anywhere on the forum.
You can complain about American women, the shitty personalities... Obsession with their phone/pop culture etc.
But.
Complaining about making money in the USA means you are an idiot. That is the one thing the USA is #1 in and it's not even close. Not even comparable and not even debatable.
It would be like me complaining about the quality of women in the best strip club in Vegas. Complaining that they weren't "wife material"... Bro you're in a strip club. That is literally the comparison this keyboard jockey broke kid is making. Period.
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America has become a HUGE scam
03-06-2014, 09:51 AM
I'm straight gettin' it in America. I wasn't born rich but now I drink with my pinky extended. You can make it happen.
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America has become a HUGE scam
03-06-2014, 10:35 AM
^ good shit man.
I don't really know why people are so infatuated with "smart" as a necessity to make money.
Over here, there are dog walkers that make $1,500 a week. Yeah that's only about 78K... But good luck making $78K a year walking dogs anywhere else.
America ain't perfect but the dolla dolla bills are.
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America has become a HUGE scam
03-06-2014, 11:56 AM
Most of it has been said already but I really like reading American history and this 'crisis'/end of america paranoia has been going on since at least the start of the 1800s. Rich exploiting circumstances, stock market crashes, people exposing or posting conspiracy theories (the freemasons/illuminati during the 1860s is interesting). People are always going to think America is going to explode tomorrow or that they will be held down. Its a matter of riding the right wave, its currently north dakota, was real estate before that and .com before that, again back in the late 1800s it was profiteering from the Civil War. That money is the capital that was put into the industrial and and railroad boom. To get ahead you need to be where, or at least involved where the action is. Lavidaloca called it well, a rich family will die out in a generation or two with lazy offspring.
Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? Psalm 2:1 KJV
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America has become a HUGE scam
03-06-2014, 12:14 PM
Dr. Howard -- exactly. North Dakota is where I work. You have to go where the opportunities are. I know a lot of guys here that didn't finish high school but make 130k or more a year. That's not to say an idiot can make it here. These are all really sharp hardworking guys, who happened to come from bad environments. But they came out with nothing but that work ethic and were able to make it because the opportunities are here.