Am re-reading Vance Packard’s book “Ultra Rich How Much is Too Much?”
Interesting in that most of the people he interviewed did not have a college degree, in a few cases they made it through the eighth grade.
No, one doesn’t have to be a crook, just creative, the way T.J. Rodges is, and the guys who started Failure Analysis Associates.
No, aha, to become rich, one does not need to be crooked. One needs to write better songs than you did, however 
Why you I oughta…c’mere you dutch bastard…( holding coldfire by the nose and boinking him in the eyes 3 stooges style)
Billie I define crooked as unscrupulous. Bending the spirit if not the very letter of the law. Visa IS currently under investigation for trying to create a monopoly. Sears just settled an out of court lawsuit for gouging people at 21% interest.
I don’t do business with either one.
The prime lending rate at this minute is 9.25%. Why the hell should Visa, master charge ( same company) and others get to charge 17-21% interest!!! How do you suppose it got that way? By buying politicians twisting legislation around and bending the law. In other words being unscrupulous.
I guess I just don’t see the difference in being unscrupulous in business and putting on a mask and holding someone up.
Here is another way Visa fucks people. They send out offers to pay off all your credit card bills at 5.9%. I got one of those. No where in the terms did I read that if you are more than two weeks late on a payment or if you default one payment your interest automatically triples to 16.99%. I phoned Visa and asked them pointed questions like, “What if I go on vacation and I am late with a payment?” And they admitted that one default or two week delay would result in the interest being tripled.
Unfortunately most people just read the large print and don’t ask questions. People like the Visa corp. depend on that to get wealthy. That’s why Tom Brokaw’s credit card segment on the nightly news is called “The fleecing of America.”
However I do see your point bille. I think we are just debating two sides of the same issue. Both have legitimate arguments.
I have speculated on this topic at great length trying to figure out how to become rich (and to a lesser extent whether or not self enrichment is a noble goal). I look at people like Rockefeller, Sam Walton, Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Ray Crock (founder of the McDonalds Corporation), the Dukes (founder of the American Tobacco Corp), Steve Winn, Donald Trump. These men all became billionaires (in today’s dollars) in very different times and industries but they all did it in the same basic way. They found a way to take advantage of people who were invariably poorer and weaker than they were.
You could become wealthy, perhaps even a millionaire by working hard for someone else, but if you want to join the ranks of the super rich you have to work for yourself. To really rake in the doe you’ll need to employ qualified people, as many as possible as cheaply as possible. (By default employees must be poorer than their employer.) You will have to use these employees as efficiently as possible to somehow persuade large masses of people to give their hard earned dollars to you. It is a misconception to think that a successful company must provide some useful service in order to prosper. The perfect example of a money making machine is a casino. It provides no truly useful service to its patrons, it only takes advantage of a basic human weakness in the compulsion to gamble. It drains people of their money and sends them on their way with nothing to show for it but huge credit card bills. Another example of how to make money is a tobacco company. They take advantage of the human weakness for nicotine and milk them of thousands of dollars as they slowly rob them of life itself.
You might argue that some people become quite wealthy by sheer luck, such as lottery winners, game show winners etc. In the case of John Carpenter, the first million dollar winner on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, who was the real winner him or ABC? Who raked in the most money? The same holds true of the lottery winners who win the jackpots. The state lotteries give out less than half of their total take to winners while the average lottery player (i.e. loser) is a minimum wage schmuck who thinks he has a chance.
My point is that if you open your eyes to how people and corporations become super rich you will realize that it is through ruthless self interest and greed. You may argue that big companies provide jobs to thousands of people. Billionaires are always talking about how many people they employ. They seem to think that providing a talented, hard working, experienced, and educated American with a job is doing them some kind of favor. If a company is paying you X dollars to do a job then they have to be making at least X dollars in profits off your work just to break even. The fact that they are raking in millions more in profits implies that they are not paying you what you are truly worth but only what they need to in order to keep you there. If your employer could keep you at minimum wage and profit a million dollars an hour off your labor then they would do so, it’s only “good” business.
You may argue that big companies like GM provide products that everyone needs. They do not do this as a service to humanity but only as a means to an end. In the words of GM’s Chairman (back in the fifties, I forget his name), “GM is not in the business of making cars, GM is in the business of making money”. Thus, any good that comes out of GM’s efforts to make money is purely unintentional on their part. I’m sure that if they could charge you a car payment every month without having to provide you with a car then they would do so.
Someone used the word “evil” earlier. I say that the world is an evil place and the super rich are simply the best at adapting to this evil world we live in.
My advice to those of you who still want to be rich after reading the above is this: You’ll never get anywhere providing services to people richer than you. Count up all your money and all your strong points and find a way to relieve poorer/weaker people of their money without breaking any laws. If you find a way let me know…
If this is your first post.
You said what I had only been trying to say. I hope we see more of you in GD.
aha: when you use a credit card you are entering into a contract. IF you dont’t read it, or choose to ignore it, you have no right to complain later. You could get a loan from a bank at 12%. You have other options besides a credit card.
Credit cards are uncollateralized and very risky. THey have a high default rate. That 21% is often necesary becaus emany people,after maxing their card say “those visa people are a bunch of rich corporate bastard so I am not paying.” And so you pay for their irresponsibility.
Rex said:
Those people do get benefits out of going to a casino: hope, entertainment, an adreneline rush, etc. IT may not be tangible, but neither is the benefit of sex, drugs, movies or rollercoasters, all of which people willingly pay billions for.
If people would pay for no benefit, I could charge for people to sit on the sidewalk in a blindfold.
And paying people the going wage is not the same as enslaving them. If people don’t think the wage is fair, they don’t have to work for you.
I know quite a few rich people. They are some of the nicest, most honest folks I know. The truth is, it is easier to say "you have to be crooked to be richh’ than it is to get off of your ass and make some money for yourself.
Hey Rex, how the hell is bill Gates Hurting society? Microsoft makes my life easier and he pays more in taxes than you will make in your entire life. Even if you dedicated your life to putre charity 24 hours a day, you would never create the benefit to society that one Billionaire has created in tax dollars alone…never mind jobs and charity.
That’s a nice notion, but do you really believe it works out that way? You’ve said before you work in the computer industry, right? The people most responsible for satisfying needs in this industry (assuming that our products do that) are the programmers. But they’re almost never the highest paid. Producers are. And why is that? Because producers are the ones who decide what everyone gets paid. I’m not suggesting that’s evil. Just human nature. Now I suppose you could argue that management is more important than code, but if you did I’d just assume you were a producer.
Incidentally, I’m neither.
I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I don’t carry a credit card and use those options. If you have any kind of property at all you can get a secured loan at 9.25%.
However in the above example that I gave…Visa sent me an offer unsolicited. I suspect because I have a good credit rating. I got out my magnifying glasses and read their overly officious contract. NO WHERE in that document did they mention that the interest rate would be tripled in case of delay of payment. If it did then it was in language that I didn’t understand. I found out that information by calling them. Yes it did say if you defaulted the loan a higher interest rate would apply but they didn’t mention delay of payment. Pretty sneaky as far as I am concerned.
The only reason they peaked my interested in the first place was because 5.9% just seemed too good to be true. And guess what…
Hey it was the credit card companies idea to loan out uncollateralized money in the first place not the consumers.
If you are trying to get me to feel bad for the credit card companies your looking a dead horse in the ass.
Damn, aha, I have been trying to cut down on looking at dead horse ass.
I don’t feel sorry for the credit card company, nor do I feel sorry for people who enter into contracts without knowing the terms.
Dumb: Managers are more important. They not only keep things running. allocate resources and provide the vision necesary to grow and be more efficient, but they are more rare. There are a lot of cameramen, but only one Spielberg.
you seem to forget that bill gates took this money from the average computer user. Its good to look at this money and say “it came from nowhere and the people who had this money wouldent have given it to charity if they had it”
personally i think that money isint worth it
also managers arent more rare. There may be only one spielberg but there are 500 other managers who do less work and get paid more.
Another reason the rich have such a positive image while in most cases robbing and using us is that they have GREAT “poster children”.
Most of us may know one or two actual rich people, but commonly we see the same rich ball players, philanthropic billionaires, beautiful actors and actresses, smiled-upon lottery winners, amusing CEOs, ingenious computer geeks, etc. etc. We can debate their overall merits as presented to us by their press coverage over and over if we so choose.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of the rich work behind the scenes getting their money ever so quietly. “Crooked?” Let’s add “immoral”, “greedy”, “gluttonous”, “solipsistic”. “unethical”, “cruel”, and “selfish” to the adjectives to likely modify most of those few who control a huge portion of the world’s wealth.
“took”? Bill stole your money and then sent you a software package?
I suppose that Bill created no new jobs? Or would you rather say that he is exploiting a bunch of computer professionals?
I also suppose that no one increased their wealth through investment in microsoft?
Did GM take your money by forcing a car on you too?
I suppose that it is easier to find good managers/leaders than to find regular workers? Well goddamn, let the secretary be the CFO and we’ll save major bucks. That guy assembling VCR’s on the line, hell, he would make a great CEO! And programmers, as we all know, have superior interpersonal and leadership skills. Let’s make IT the board of directors!
Shit, we could have been saving millions all this time…
I’ll take that to mean you’re a manager. And Spielberg is a director, not a producer, but I don’t work in the film industry, so I won’t presume to speak for it. But I can tell you the most important guy on my project (a computer game) by a long shot is a programmer, and if you were to ask the producer, he’d tell you the same thing. My producer is a smart, easy-going guy. He does a good job and everyone like him, but when he went on vaction for two weeks no one even noticed. In no sense of the word does his vision drive this team. The art director leads the artistic vision, the designers lead the design, and the programmers take care of themselves. These people are highly trained and self-motivated. They don’t need anyone to ‘keep things running’.
**
True, some of them don’t. Some of them are downright nuts. But software is built with code, not charm. A truly gifted programmer is like a chunk of gold in this industry, and any good manager knows it.
Aha, your original OP - “Do you have to be crooked to become really wealthy?”
No. There is no requirement to be crooked to become wealthy. It may help along the way of one is willing to take short cuts, but not required. I put it to you, since you are (were?) in the entertainment industry, that plenty of entertainers who have amassed fortunes were not at all crooked. Michael Jackson was very wealthy by age 15; I doubt he was a crook then. He was wealthy because he gave great joy to many people, and he got paid for it. Plenty examples like this one, I’m sure you’ll agree.
How people handle wealth is another story. What a few million can do to a person is probably worth debating, but I disagree with your point. The fact that some achieve great wealth does not mean they must be crooked, just like saying that all poor people are honest - there are plenty of poor thieves - they are just bad at what they do.
The complete gibberish of those (Rex, Biotop) who make blanket statements that all rich people are evil, scheming bastards who will rob the poor of everything makes me sick. I thought there was some premise here about fighting ignorance – this is way off. There is little doubt that many have made fortunes illegally, but just as many were admired while creating wealth for themselves, and whole communities, while breaking no laws or moral codes (remember, moral codes are very subjective!). Name a few? OK, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, Luciano Pavarotti, Dan Aykroyd, Jimmy Stewart, and I hope one day, the manager I work for – one of the most dedicated, hard working, and honest people I have met. (No, he’s not on this board). The comments I saw about managers (again, sweeping generalisms), could not be more false!
Lets put the question this way, for all those here who have criticized “the rich” in general: If you are rewarded for your efforts with several million dollars, are you now that vile thing you have just described? I thought not. Aha – what if you finally collect for those songs that which is rightfully yours? Are you crooked?
Sili
I don’t know anything about your industry, and wont argue that you can make software without programmers any more than you can build a house without carpenters.
But I assume you work for a company. And I assume that capital is raised, debts and bills paid, budgets created, staff adjusted, deadlines enforced? All done by management. You probably are in one of those nice situations where the workers are self motivated, dedicated and focused. And you should count your blessings every day that you work in such a place. In thta case are right , no mid or low level management needed.
In general, good managers are hard to find and teams deteriorate without a manager. Maybe not in your industry, but in many others. Imagine a house being built without a foreman or contractor.
I’m not suggesting that a good manager isn’t a great boon. And indeed they are rare. But if you needed a house built and had a choice between 1) 10 unsupervised carpenters or 2) a great foreman and 10 cooks, which would you prefer?
Of course, with the property values where I live you can’t afford a house unless you’re in management, so it’s a good thing we have managers around, if only to keep the carpenters employed.
tradesilicon:
Let me tell you how that works. People like Michael (as bad as I hate to admit it) are among the few super talents. They are hit record factorys. He is one of the geese that lays the golden eggs in the recording industry and making many other people rich in the process. You screw the goose too badly and the golden eggs stop coming. So when you see his success you are seeing the best of the situation. I don’t have any references to prove it but I can just about guarantee that of the millions that he has earned, at the very least hundreds of thousands have been sphioned off by music biz crooks along the way. He is still incredibly wealthy so no harm no foul.
BTW since the sixties, legislation has been passed to protect artists like Michael Jackson from the complete reaming that pioneer aritists got back then.
Now marginally talented guys like we were (compared to talents like the Beatles etc) just couldn’t take all the fucking we got from millionaire crooks like our manager and crooked music people. If we had been paid our fair share of royalties we would have had the initiative to keep trying to pump out those hits, possibly making more money for everyone. But the greedy bastard/bastards we were forced to deal with, just couldn’t force themselves to pay up. So greed won over.
And we weren’t alone either, those one hit wonders? Some of those were people who got fucked so badly by the industry with their debut hit, that most of them just got the hell out rather than beg some green suit record exec at a record company for more “advances against future royalties” so they could pay rent and eat.
As far as collecting my royalites? It’s much too late for that. Those were greedly gobbled down many years ago by people who had nothing to do with earning them. However if I could magically put the genie back in the bottle and collect them, I think I can safely say that I would neither be crooked nor rich.
I’m in the software business. The coders who work for me are like gold. So are the managers who work for me. The only managers I’ll hire are ex-coders who proved they had good coding skills, and went on to prove that they also had good management skills. The fact is that a good manager is rarer than a good coder. Microeconomics is simple stuff: rarer people are paid more.
People are paid on supply and demand of their skill sets, ability levels, and ultimately for the value (money) they bring in to the organization. Sales people make more than coders. Is that fair? Well, yes it is. A good salesperson is rarer, and delivers more raw value. Same with managers. The coder is not the ‘most responsible for satisfying the needs’ as you put it. Ultimately, the people who deliver products to the market (sales folks) and the people who shape the product to what the market needs (managers) are.
I’ve been in this business for a long time. The value of management is to focus, keep on track and coordinate. I don’t mean to call you naive, but I can assure you that any group, especially a group of some size, will not be focused without good management. Sometimes there isn’t a manager by title, but the management comes from within, where one person without a title makes things happen. But more often than not, without good management, things veer. This is especially true of engineering. And I say that not just from extensive industry experience, but also from some introspection of my own coding days.
BTW, if you (I mean you personally) are a good coder, you are lucky enough to be an incredibly in-demand person, and as I say above, should find yourself compensated accordingly. If you’re having trouble in the housing market, you may want to look for another job. Three coders who have worked for me in the past 3 years are now millionaires. Managers aren’t the exclusive owners of our booming hi-tech economy.
There are two basic messages that keep getting reiterated. Either:
a) You have to be crooked to become wealthy, or
b) After you become wealthy, you will become crooked.
I’m not a gazillionaire, but I’ve got a bigger than average wallet, and I really resent those two messages. I came from relatively humble beginnings (no college degree, lived in a car for several months, etc.), and I’m proud of my accomplishments. I consider myself a hard worker, and I think that those who know me would agree. I’ve had a good amount of luck in my life, but by and large I’ve earned everything I have. In my own mind, I’m not crooked and I don’t expect that people who know me or work with me would say that I am either. This whole idea that the rewards from hard work are something to be ashamed of is pretty harsh.
Turn the OP question around and see how it feels: Do you have to be stupid and lazy to become really poor?