Fack!!! I'm jealous of a crack-head! - Page 3

That's pretty sweet. I'm still at the office...sheeeeeit.

What city are you in? You have your letters yet?

Just saw an interesting interview on TV with Warren Buffet. The man is worth in excess of $60BILLION dollars, yet he still lives in the house he bought in the 1960's for $30k and drives a second hand car.

Yup, he is an interesting character. A thief broke into his home a while ago and his wife chased him out with a broom or something. Do you have a link to that interview?

Unfortunately not sorry. It was on an Australian tv show called "7pm". There might be something online if you wanted to search around. His theory was that just because he has money, it doesn't mean he has to spend it. He is happy with his current house and car, so he doesn't see the need to buy something better just because he can. Paraphrased quote "owning 5 houses and 10 cars might make the next man happy, but it won't improve my happiness. It is more of a burden than anything else" They went on to say that his own son went to a public school and has not seen much money at all from his dad. The only bulk amount of money he every received was an inheritance of $90k from his grandfather.

Debt. They have lots of it.

A big part of this is selective perception - you NOTICE when the driver of the Range Rover etc. is a "meat head" or the like, but your attention isn't being drawn by older or conservative-looking people driving luxury vehicles so you're not developing an accurate model of the economics.

If you sit at a busy corner for an hour, and count the "guido" drivers of luxury vehicles versus corporate/conservative/educated/whatever-looking drivers of same, I think you'll sharply reevaluate the percentage of these cars being driven by which type of driver.

And it's not necessarily that they're simply financing things by debt (or not that they're doing this any more than the safely corporate-looking drivers are.) There are myriad legitimate ways a blue-collar or street-looking person might make "fat stacks" - they could own a rim shop or towing company, a repo outfit, a club or bar; they could be a successful home theater installer, own a roofing company... one can go on and on. They could even be a waiter - a waiter at a high end eatery can take home $500+ a night in tips. Plenty of ways to rake it in sans college degree.

Bear in mind, too, that an entrepreneurially-minded person (even a "guido") who eschews college in favor of working right after high school has 4+ years head start earning income over a college grad - while this is meaningless for the Wallmart clerk type, it can be significant for a young person who has learned a trade (installing car sound systems, working in a body shop, selling cars).

The main downside of high-paying blue-collar trades is lack of scalability, but there's an entrepreneurial workaround - the cook opens a restaurant, or the mechanic a chain body shops. Rare, but it does happen often enough to result in an Ed Hardy clad meathead occasionally rolling by in his Bentley Supersport

DH

Dave Ramsey is a financial advice columnist/radio host. Very conservative (small 'c'), focus is on figuring out what you want in the long-term, paying off all debt, and building wealth over time. Traditional American thrift, in other words (see also Millionaire Next Door, Richest Man in Babylon, etc).

Good: Solid framework for building wealth, easy to follow for people with no financial background, common sense advice (what you should have learned in school about personal finance)

Bad: A little too conservative/debt-averse (100% down payment on houses, seriously?), a little too much Bible talk for my heathen tastes, focus is on providing a comfortable lower middle-class lifestyle until you retire with a couple of million in mutual funds and not how to get balls-out oligarch rich while you're still young enough to enjoy it.

Spend some time in the "Entertainment District" in Toronto...you'll see early-20s spiky-haired orange trolls in 911s, Land Rovers, etc. with their implant-sporting bimbos, all thanks to dad's paving/construction business.

To the guidos in luxury vehicles...let's take Rover. They depreciate like a mo-fo. We're talking about a 45% residual in three years. Also, with the economy tanking, that market is soft. They do not become dated looking as fast as many vehicles. So you find a five year old RRS, buy it for about 30k and slap on 3k in rims. Suddenly, you're the 35k millionaire.

Of course, you're out of warranty, don't have the latest and greatest toys on it, and no longer have road side assistance, comp'ed service loaners, etc.

Not to mention that you can lease-hire a decent car for a fairly little monthly outlay. Also if you're a crack dealer, you will know someone who can "acquire" cars for you.

Well, to get into a new RRS, you're looking at well over 1k a month, unless you buy down the cap cost considerably at the time of lease inception. I mean, you're looking at about 1k a month in depreciation alone, then add in finance charges and state/local taxes.

For an accountant, you're much to focused on assets and not sufficiently on liablities. Without knowing much more about your financial situation, I can guarantee that you'd be approved for those loans.

Either rich parents or she/her boyfriend slangs to other rich kids.

thoughts like these often cross my mind.. and you sometimes feel as though people are undeserving of the material wealth they have acquired.. especially knowing the amount of work you have done with little to show for it the american college system has raped me, leaving me 45k in debt i barely even have a part time job, now moving to NY where after i graduated, couldnt even get a job at Pier 1 with a degree shit may seem grim...and this may sound cliche... but youre alive typing on a computer right now...meaning youre under a roof, meaning you probably have eaten today to have energy to be on here bitching so shit isnt really THAT bad is it? keep your chin up, keep observing the way you do, who knows, maybe an opportunity to accumulate more money can spawn from SF...or you can become a personal fashion advisor for the average man.. --BBW