You wanted the secret to getting rich? Here it is
You wanted the secret to getting rich? Here it is
You wanted the secret to getting rich? Here it is
change it to billionaire and I agree, people with $1m are not obscenely wealthy these days
The difference between a billion dollars and a million dollars is about a billion dollars.
I know several (low) millionaires and none of them exploited other people's hard work. All of them are self-employed, and one of them is the single employee of their company.
Billionaires on the other hand. Yep, no way to get to a billion without heavy exploitation and sociopathic behavior.
I know several (low) millionaires and none of them exploited other people’s hard work.
checks under the hood
Where'd you, uh... where'd you get all that compound interest on your investments from?
All of them are self-employed, and one of them is the single employee of their company.
"I've never exploited anyone!"
"Oh really, what do you do for a living?"
"Insurance defense lawyer."
In USA they're not, but most of rest of the world that'd be
Most, sure, but Europe, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and more are still a significant part of the world where $1M puts you firmly in the same "well-off and comfortable, but certainly not rich in the way billionaires are" territory you'd be in the US
Worldwide, I think it's definitely safe to say most millionaires' lifestyles are much closer to average than they are to billionaires' (ie still having to make regular payments for housing, but mortgage rather than rent, and still having to perform most tasks for themselves rather than having PAs to do it for them)
people with $1m are not obscenely wealthy these days
I'd rather have it than not.
So it was hard work after all, just not their own
He did say "they"
gestures broadly
The real secret to becoming rich is to have parents who are rich.
Sometimes you have rich parents. Sometimes you have friends with rich parents. Sometimes you just find yourself at the center of a CIA money laundering operation.
Forgot rich parents
True, but odds are that the parents also got rich by other people working hard for below a living wage and stay rich in the same way.
Also my dad is a billionaire
It is easy to get rich, as long as you have the moral compass of a cactus.
First I'd code some malware that specifically targets old people to try to scam them out of money. With that money I'd short out companies on the brink of going bankrupt and help by doing things that cost them money but aren't technically illegal. With that money I'd start my own business selling crap bought from overseas, with students I can underpay, so I exploit both my customers and my workforce. Then with that money I'd bribe politicians to give me tax breaks.
There, now I am a multi millionaire.
I think you forgot to buy the Washington Post, but otherwise a pretty solid plan.
Sad but true that some people's need for success, money, and power allows them to rationalize their complete disregard for basic morality.
"Do you know how hard it is to keep the plebs just happy enough that they don't burn down my property?"
Henry Ford would've begged to differ.
Henry Ford still underpaid people for their labor. That is the fundamental key to capitalism. Profit is surplus labor that capitalists steal from laborers.
When it comes to new technologies, advancements, or discoveries, rarely is it the people who made them that get most of the profit made from them, the people that make the most are the ones that exploited them. It's crazy that our best and brightest are more times than not indentured to our most greedy.
There needs to be laws and regulation to prevent and stop excessive greed and exploitation.