Economic Terrorism & Right Livelihood
rohit
Maharrashtra Veteran
I had been going through lot of information about Economics from books and mostly online. I read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" .
In this book the author Robert Kiyosaki tells us that schools do not make us economically literate. The difference between Rich parents and other parents is that Rich parents teaches their children about how money works. He also tells about Tax system. In beginning there was no taxes in USA. When govt first applied taxes, people accepted it because they thought that rich people has to pay it. But later the richest people are wise they do not pay any taxes. They make government in there favour. Government do not have any choice other that to favour Rich people as they said to be creating jobs.
The solution given by him to be rich is to make cash flow chart. The definition of investment he makes " Something which keeps money in your pocket is investment." So the car and house are not a investment but liability.
Another gentlemen making awareness in common people is Mike Maloney. You can watch his eye opening educational videos on youtube. He says that Banks all over the world prints currency notes (which you think that it is money but it is not) out of thin air. The government is stealing your money kept in banks by printing more notes. Although he uses the word Dollar but it applies to all fiat currencies around world. He says that real money is physical gold not even gold bonds.
Gold has maintained it's value since start.
At certain stage it looks like panic like "End of the world- like movie 2012". Is there civil war is coming in the world? The world is connected and so the no place on the world is safe economically. Whatever crash in economy happens in china,USA and Europe gets transferred to all world. Saving money/currency is out of date because gold standard is not applicable to dollars since last 40 years.
The people who do not know how the currency and money work going to suffer which can hurt their Right Livelihood.
I guess some people over here already know about this matter. I would like to ask how to be financially safe. How to make investments or how should be financially safe. Share market already has bubble which is going to burst like .com bubble which isn't giving returns.
Comments
Some books can be both informative and troubling, can't they? I'm certainly not an expert in finances or work in the business, but several things you said stick out. I agree schools should be teaching kids about finances. However, considering you can't even get adults that don't have much money to learn what a credit score is and what affects it, I don't know how much help it would give a lot of people.
The part about taxes I'd debate. We had taxes since civilization itself, in that people were forced to give part of their crop to the government, whatever form that took. If not goods, then give so many days of their labor. Taxes fell on the common man first because they were the ones who produced things to tax, unlike the rich.
But now we get into money. Of all our inventions, money is the strangest and most taken for granted, isn't it? I have in a small box a collection of Korean coins and bank notes that are worth quite a bit if I'm standing in Osan, but not worth anything at all here in the USA. And I have no idea how this bitcoin thing can actually be considered currency. Money isn't created out of nothing and magically worth what the government says it's worth, though.
How to be safe? I suppose you'd have to say what you're being safe from. Survivalists would say only weapons and stockpiled food and supplies are ultimately of value "just in case" but for most of us, the biggest crisis would be losing our job or having a sudden expense or retiring and realizing we didn't save enough to live on.
I think the wealthy make a mistake in emphasising the accumulation of more money. It is a problem, you need money to live on, and money gives freedom of action, but being beholden to getting more and more so that you can be rich, etc, is a dangerous thing. You can end up chaining yourself to a goal that very few achieve.
Imagine that you are a Thai forest monk, with nothing but a robe and a bowl and a pair of sandals. It would be immensely liberating. You let existence take care of you, and spread the dharma and in return the lay community looks after you, providing you with food and basic needs. You would be forbidden from touching money!
So how as a lay Buddhist to find a middle way? Freedom from greed - one of the most pernicious forms of desire - is more important than being rich. Being ethical, using one's wealth for the betterment of mankind, is more important than earning a profit. If you have money enough, buy your own home, that is a sound investment. That is my philosophy anyway.
As far as safety is concerned, I would keep a good part of my money as cash in a bank. Some shares are relatively safe, large companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Unilever. I would stay away from investing in oil or pharmaceuticals or banks on ethical grounds.
Assuming a stable property market then I would say that a car is a liability and a house an investment. A car deteriorates, so it is worth less as time goes on and also costs more to maintain as it gets older. A house should hold or increase it's value, but more importantly owning a house means that sooner or later one will be able to live rent free, which is a huge saving.
More generally I think the best financial strategy is to have lower material expectations and therefore lower financial overheads. Being able to live cheaply is a great advantage, and the feeling of contentment which underlies it is worth developing.
For answer send any amount (more is better) to:
Lobster Antique Sardine Can Fund
Bank Suisse
Zurich
or usual offshore accounts etc.
and now back to the free financial advice ... (inferior product in my impartial opinion)
Too late, he has already signed up to the Dairy Lama Tesco Investment Plan, which comes with a years supply of free Neapolitan and a cheap biro.
This is just such a huge topic, I'm not sure anyone here can tell you what investments to make. It is a very individual choice. My 19 year old son already has an IRA that he set up. He has other investments as well, including high, low and medium risk things. All from his own earned money. He makes the choice to not have a car and instead prefers to travel.
I disagree that a house is a liability, but it depends on a lot of factors. My parents built the house we currently live in for about $22,000. It's worth 6 times that now in the current market in our area. Yes, it costs money to maintain it, but we all have to live somewhere and everything you use has to be maintained. So the option is to buy and increase the value of your home, or rent and just make someone else rich while you give them your money. Of course there is the trade off of never having to worry when something major goes wrong. You don't have to spend $500 to have the AC repaired or $5000 to reshingle the roof after a hail storm etc.
Actually it is asset which keeps money in your pocket and which take money out of pocket is a liability. Having large house invites tax and large some of debt to construct/buy it and we starts to work for bank to make them rich by paying large amount of interest.
To purchase large plot and using some portion of it for shop(give it on rent to pay debt) might be very good idea. It will allow to live in large house. In addition parking and some garden.
As per Robert Kiyosaki house is liability and not a investment or asset because you need to pay debt and interest when you construct it. Moreover after paying all debt you need to pay tax of the house. It is not adding any money in your pocket.
$22,000 may buy the same home not 4 house to this date. It means value remained same. It is due to inflation. He suggests having small home at start and investing money to make cash flow. Make money work for you rather than work for money.
Your son is smart. By having car younger people leaves chance to create wealth.
Ya, It is called Aprigrah in Jain terminology. Accumulating more that needed is bad Karma. Your choice of ethical share strategy is so admirable.
Economic terrorism. I'll say.
I do appreciate the reminders (via the poster), @federica - but there are too many self-generating problems with human beings and other creatures, like birth control for starters. That's the ONLY break I give the richest - that no matter whose money you throw at these problems, the money isn't the REAL answer...IF there's any answer at all.
As pointed out implicitly and explicitly above, money is nothing more than belief. Beliefs are limited and hence cannot be made "safe." But money has the potential to secure a bit of chocolate ... which gives me hope for the future of money.
The more money you have the happier you are , right?
Absolutley unequivocally not.
My parents took out no loans to build the house. They saved and built, and then saved and added on. My dad did all of the work himself, including planing the wood and they took on no debt at all for it. He has built 3 houses and made significant income upon selling them because he took on no interest and did the work himself for very minimal cost. His last house he built he spend $18,000 and sold it for $120,000. Taxes are very dependent on where you live. Ours are quite cheap ($500 a year). So it just depends on many factors, and just because one person says something, doesn't make it true across the vast spectrum of home ownership. We could sell at a significant increase (even accounting for maintenance costs and taxes) to upgrade, but we don't want a bigger house. Actually, we will eventually sell this bigger house and downsize to have more yard/garden and less house.
I personally hate the entire way our economics works, on every scale. I just simply hate that we have set up our societies to be focused on money as much as we have to the point we (most of us) spend the healthiest years of ours lives making someone else rich
and by the time we can afford to retire, we have health problems and other issues related to having spent decades working all to have enough money to simply stay alive, and to have the job we need to pay for the stuff to stay alive. It's an insane cycle. I hate it. Which is why we are investing and working towards being able to be self sufficient while working less. My dad retired when he was 49.
Well it is obviously important to cut down on unnecessary expenses. For example I will not be availing myself of my US funds in protest against Donald 'we the people and millionnaires' Tripe. I feel just sending the very reasonable fee of $150 to unlock my funds is an unnesssary cost.
Yes, it's the old wage-slave thing. Though developing simplicity and contentment means you can lower material expectations and be a bit less slavish about it, maybe working part-time, having a better work-life balance,