Doom and Gloom!

Originally Posted by armygreywolf

I wholeheartedly disagree with you unknownk. Let me explain why. I grew up in the 90s, a time of extreme excess... 3 cars, a boat, two four wheelers, snow machines for every family member, 5 credit cards, 2 store cards and 2 jobs in the house. This was everywhere in middle america and I know you guys remember it. However...it was fake. You cannot charge your way to a better life. First. I remind everyone that in today's society our margins are smaller because more people have access to what (ten years ago) gave people an edge in life, business and social activity.

Today it's not so much how HARD you work its how smart you are about it. Putting in hours is fine, and I made good money for a long time doing just that. But when bad times hit you have to step back and figure out what you are doing wrong, or...even if nothing is being done wrong, what can be done better. Most of us, myself included get a certain attitude about things and places and people...but the truth is your shooting yourself in the foot.

If you want to have a better life, and have more you need to learn some fundamentals. Niche markets, networking, quality and service. Frankly speaking...we all complain about how terrible certain companies are with customer service and how difficult it is to deal with so and so. You need to latch on to that and be the polar opposite.

I'll elaborate on this when I get home.

The fundamentals to get ahead have always been having been born with money and connections to other people with money through family and friends. Hard work only gets you more hard work until somebody else will do that work for less and then you are screwed. Niche markets are great if the market that supports it sticks around, problem is those niches will end up in Asia and you are stuck here.

The 90's (when I got out of college) were a blip where companies would hire almost anyone because they were all booming and wages were decent. The problem is that during the 90's is when pretty much everything was offshored and labor collapsed. The decent paying jobs these days are all fake (health care and defense), both industries will collapse sooner or later because they are funded by unpayable debt just like the housing market. Hell even Hollywood is having problems where unless you are a hot A-lister you are not getting work. People who used to be in movies are begging to be on TV just to make a living. How many movies and shows are being made overseas just to cut costs and not employ US labor?

The fact is after generations of people who lived, worked, and died with assets left over for the next generation quite a large percentage of people are dying in debt. This service economy can't live in a vacuum where all the products we buy send our money out of the country and what stays is just swapped around till its gone. There isn't going to be a housing boom or internet boom to get us going again. Stock prices commodities and debt make a few people rich but do nothing for the rest of us, that is where the doom and gloom come from.

Originally Posted by pjost

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This is so off base I quit reading after the first sentence. Do you have any idea how many wealthy people started from nothing or very humble beginnings?

I don't care what the media or others say. The American Dream is not dead. hard work always pays off in my book.

In the US quite a few during periods of major expansion and growth where people built industries out of nothing (petroleum, automotive, trains, naval construction, airplanes, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, polymers, radar, space exploration, agriculture, etc). Tell me what new industries are coming out of the woodwork these days for people of humble beginnings? The last big one was the internet bubble where people built Amazon, Facebook, Google. Fracking might be bringing in major money but not that many extra people are employed doing that and the boom is over. Green technology is mostly Asian built.

Sure people can still rise from nothing, but they will be bringing up few people with them which is the point I was trying to make.