I worked with a guy that will forever be poor

even though he was making good money.

His entire net worth consisted of whatever car he was driving and the cash he had in his pocket.

He had a wife and a couple of kids and rented an apartment, had no 401K (even though the company was matching our deposits...free money!)no real savings, nothing. Just a paycheck.

Truth is his comprehension seemed to be based on back on the block mentality. Cash.

When I explained that the 401K was a source of free money because of the company matching our deposits he said it would take cash money out of his pocket.

I would imagine he's one of those people that thinks billionaires have huge swimming pools full of cash.

In this country it doesn't take much to get a net worth of over a million bucks if you have a halfway decent job, some discipline, play by the rules and have half of a brain and even a smidgen's worth of foresight.

I was planning on taking some time out to figure out my net worth but have decided against it because if I find out I am worth I might decide  to do something stupid.

  

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I am not always right.

I have made predictions that have missed the boat any number of times. The one that comes to mind as I type was what would happen to George Zimmerman after he shot Treyvon Martin.

Under Florida's stand your ground law I didn't think that Zimmerman would be arrested. Later I was surprised to see the jury didn't cave in to outside pressure and convict him. He got an acquital.

I'm just some guy that looks at things and tries to logically figure things out.

Sometimes I hit, sometimes I miss.

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Oil dropped to $83/barrel.

My crystal ball tells me we are going to see an awful lot of prices drop in the fairly near future.

People look at the price of gas only when they fill their tanks. They aways seem to forget the magic of our country runs on gas.

It's called logistics and thaat's getting things to where they belong.

Lettuce in California doesn't do anyone in Pittsburgh any good. Unfortunately lettuce doesn't deliver itself so someone's gotta get it there if people in Pittsburgh are going to be able to buy it.

I suppose that if someone was to create self-delivering goods we could skip having to pay to have it delivered but I don't see that coming into the picture for a while.

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The usual suspects are taking full advantage of the ignorance of the people

Politicians are screeching of the inherent evil of Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire. They act like Musk has a big, giant vault somewhere with piles and piles of cash in it and somehow he has cheated everyone out of paying his fair share of taxes.

That's bull$hit. 

"He isn't paying taxes on that money!" is a common gripe. 

What money? It's not like he was handed cash. The value of his stocks in SpaceX just went up.

What's even more interesting is that when Musk broke the trillionaire cap he created 4400 millionaires in the process. Employees that took advantage of SpaceX's stock options had their shares go up at the same rate Musk's shares increased and 4400 people became instant millionaires, some made tens of millions.

Umpteen years ago I won a company whatever and became the proud owner of $5K worth of company stocks which I simply sat on it a while paying no attention to it whatsoever. I had no tax liability because it wasn't income and had no negotiable value. 

Later on several years later there was a buyback from the company and I sold it back to the company for about $8K. Because I had cashed it out it had generated income and I paid taxes on the entire $8K. 

Meanwhile the usual suspects are screeching to their minions about a 'wealth tax' which would force the on paper rich to sell off assets to pay the taxes. Not only would this hurt the wealthy but it would hurt the rest of us in varying degrees.

Personally I'm a pretty spiteful kind of guy when I get riled up.

If they enacted a tax on unrealized capital gains I would sell it all, pay the taxes immediately and shift about $100 million cash offshore and retire someplace that has good weather. 

If Musk did this it's pretty likely that the stock market would take a very serious dive and throw us all into a recession. Fortunes would be lost, people would lose jobs and there would be sadness throughout the land.

Someone put it better than I did.

Musk is not sitting on a pile of cash.

His wealth is simply his part ownership in corporate assets of production.

Worse yet, his trillion dollar worth is not current cash.

He has to produce enough goods and services in the future to make the present value of those expected revenues come true,

which means making things people actually want,

instead of being taxed.

That is the essence of free market enterprise.

You only get income if people want to buy your goods and services of their own free will, not at gunpoint or the prospect of jail,

as with all government so-called services.

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Las Vegas and Johnny Weissmuller.

Back in the day Vegas used to do a few things out of both kindness and to attract business.

Johnny Weismuller, the definitive Tarzan, was scratching  his ass financially so the MGM Grand and Ceasar's Palace hired him to be a 'celebrity greeter' which I think was a cool thing to do.

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Net worth just went up.

One of the things I notice is that many people don't understand things. Take the rich. They think that a billionaire has a swimming pool full of cash because he has a high net worth. All they think of is cash.

Like most people, my biggest assets are my home and vehicles.

My home is currenty appreciating (even after being adjusted for inflation). My pickup is a depreciating asset. (Used pickups are insanely epensive these days. They depreciate slowly)

Before the brake problems it was worth about $4K. When the brakes started acting up its value dropped to about $2.5K. When I threw $3K at it for repairs and cosmetics it jumped to about $7-8K in value. As a depreciating asset it will depreciate from $8K instead of $2.5

Repairing it increased my paper wealth by over $3K.

Enter the idiot that looks confused and says "I don't see no cash."

That's because I have not liquidated it yet, fool.

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What if I run for office and take $1000 from someone that earned it

and gave $100 each to ten lazy bums?

I would lose one vote but gain ten.

Rinse, repeat.

And that's how it works.

===============================

I see whare Musk became a trillionaire and the left is pissing and moaning.

If the people that piss and moan about this were to stop yapping and start building things they could also get rich.

But it's easier to take it away from someone that earned it.

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Finally got a human telemarketer and (I think) a newbie

When you are retired and on Medicare then you get hassled by people wanting to sell you a supplementry package.

I got through the artificial intelligence introduction and actually got through to a real live human being. I got the introductory speil and then he asked me if I had Medicare Part A and Part B.

"I'm incarcerated. The state takes care of me," I said and he sounded shocked.

"But you have a telephone," he said.

"Yeah, I know but it can only take incoming calls." I said. "When the warden found out I was doing time for murdering a telemarketer he gave me the phone because he doesn't like telemarketers either."

I figured he's have hung up by now but either he was a newbie, a gutton for punishment or just pain bored.

"What did they give you?" he asked.

"I got a year less almost three months for time served. I'll be out in a couple of months." I said. "The judge doesn't like telemarketers, either. He tried to get the DA to reduce the charge to disorderly conduct and let me skate with a $25 fine."

"I'll put you on the do not call list," he said. 

"I'd appreciate it," I said and he hung up.

 

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X marks the spot

There is a movie in the background simply for noise but I heard a voice say "X marks the spot."

I do not know why but that popped out so I had to see what movie was playing.

It was Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade.

I ran a Google search on how may movie have contained that phrase and they basically said 'Thousands'.

It is attributed to Robert Lewis Stevenson's Treasure Island.

Good to know. 

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