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HughBeaumont
HughBeaumont's Journal
HughBeaumont's Journal
March 3, 2014
"More attainable today than ever". REALLY? Tell all of the shuttered small businesspeople by the thousands that. Tell the single moms of America that. Tell the indebted college students that. Tell the long-term unemployed that. Tell laid off blue collar workers who had to start all over in their 50s that. Tell laid-off Master's Degree and PhD holders that. Tell the STEM graduates who invested their money and did everything they were told only to come out to the worst job market in two decades that. Tell seniors that. Tell the average worker, whose average wage hasn't risen in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1979, that hitting the $1 million mark is realistic. What sort of bubble does this woman LIVE in?
. . . and she goes on to list an anecdotal situation where someone came from no money to become wealthy. THAT SETTLES IT! Conclusion reached, YOU'RE JUST LAZY, slackers!
. . . and again . . . another anecdotal passes for supporting proof.
The assertion that 86% of millionaires are "self made" is horseshit, by the way.
And yet, they still made it. Here's the thing. If I somehow miraculously made it to the million-dollar mark, I'm not going to sit there and tell someone that I made this money entirely by my hard work and good ol' fashioned gumption and yew can TOO! I'm no idiot. Economies can be just as favorable to a certain sector at any given time just as they can be unfavorable to others. No one has to like what I sell. Studies show that tech giants were all born in the same time period. It's very possible that their initial crucial first years were met with no landmines, personal or business. To discount luck in a person's success is being silly and borderline facetious.
Articles like this . . . it's almost as if they're making fun of us for not believing in this "American Dream" fairy tale. That rags to riches CAN happen ("can" being the operative word) if only we just all WORKED HARDER. It belittles middle/working/poor class struggle and reduces realities, hardships and bad breaks as "excuses".
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/6-millionaire-myths-debunked-000000873.html
6 millionaire myths debunked: More Yahoo.com 1%er Propaganda.
Many people believe that — while it’d certainly be nice — they’ll never become millionaires. That it’s an utterly unattainable dream.
The truth is: Hitting the $1 million mark is more attainable today than ever — and more important. That’s because, in order to live comfortably in retirement through your eighties, many people will need a nest egg of at least $1 million. “A general rule of thumb is that you need to save $1 million for every $40,000 of annual income you need to replace at retirement, not including Social Security, pension income or any other retirement income,” says David Fernandez, CFP, of Wealth Engineering in Scottsdale, Ariz.
The truth is: Hitting the $1 million mark is more attainable today than ever — and more important. That’s because, in order to live comfortably in retirement through your eighties, many people will need a nest egg of at least $1 million. “A general rule of thumb is that you need to save $1 million for every $40,000 of annual income you need to replace at retirement, not including Social Security, pension income or any other retirement income,” says David Fernandez, CFP, of Wealth Engineering in Scottsdale, Ariz.
"More attainable today than ever". REALLY? Tell all of the shuttered small businesspeople by the thousands that. Tell the single moms of America that. Tell the indebted college students that. Tell the long-term unemployed that. Tell laid off blue collar workers who had to start all over in their 50s that. Tell laid-off Master's Degree and PhD holders that. Tell the STEM graduates who invested their money and did everything they were told only to come out to the worst job market in two decades that. Tell seniors that. Tell the average worker, whose average wage hasn't risen in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1979, that hitting the $1 million mark is realistic. What sort of bubble does this woman LIVE in?
The Myth: Millionaires Are Just Luckier
Millionaires are the luckiest among us, right? They won the lottery, struck gold with their very first attempt at launching a business or haphazardly landed their dream jobs with massive salaries. Not so: Pure luck is not a factor in achieving success. Rather, truly successful people make their own luck. After all, a million-dollar idea is worth nothing without execution.
Millionaires are the luckiest among us, right? They won the lottery, struck gold with their very first attempt at launching a business or haphazardly landed their dream jobs with massive salaries. Not so: Pure luck is not a factor in achieving success. Rather, truly successful people make their own luck. After all, a million-dollar idea is worth nothing without execution.
. . . and she goes on to list an anecdotal situation where someone came from no money to become wealthy. THAT SETTLES IT! Conclusion reached, YOU'RE JUST LAZY, slackers!
The Myth: Most Millionaires Were Born Into Money
Another common myth is that millionaires were born into money or inherited it. But that's not often the case. In a recent survey, Fidelity Investments found 86 percent of millionaires are self-made. And among the more than 100 millionaires I interviewed for my book, each was self-made and only 26 percent of them said they even had connections to important people beforehand.
Another common myth is that millionaires were born into money or inherited it. But that's not often the case. In a recent survey, Fidelity Investments found 86 percent of millionaires are self-made. And among the more than 100 millionaires I interviewed for my book, each was self-made and only 26 percent of them said they even had connections to important people beforehand.
. . . and again . . . another anecdotal passes for supporting proof.
The assertion that 86% of millionaires are "self made" is horseshit, by the way.
The Myth: Millionaires Have to Be Fearless
Though it may seem like the only way to become a millionaire is to forge full-steam ahead and assume a lot of risk, fears are totally normal — even for the ultra-successful. Fifty-seven percent of the millionaires I surveyed said they were scared before starting their own business — scared of failure, disappointing their spouses or their families, scared of losing everything.
Though it may seem like the only way to become a millionaire is to forge full-steam ahead and assume a lot of risk, fears are totally normal — even for the ultra-successful. Fifty-seven percent of the millionaires I surveyed said they were scared before starting their own business — scared of failure, disappointing their spouses or their families, scared of losing everything.
And yet, they still made it. Here's the thing. If I somehow miraculously made it to the million-dollar mark, I'm not going to sit there and tell someone that I made this money entirely by my hard work and good ol' fashioned gumption and yew can TOO! I'm no idiot. Economies can be just as favorable to a certain sector at any given time just as they can be unfavorable to others. No one has to like what I sell. Studies show that tech giants were all born in the same time period. It's very possible that their initial crucial first years were met with no landmines, personal or business. To discount luck in a person's success is being silly and borderline facetious.
Articles like this . . . it's almost as if they're making fun of us for not believing in this "American Dream" fairy tale. That rags to riches CAN happen ("can" being the operative word) if only we just all WORKED HARDER. It belittles middle/working/poor class struggle and reduces realities, hardships and bad breaks as "excuses".
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/6-millionaire-myths-debunked-000000873.html
February 28, 2014
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2014-01-30/news/us-chamber-of-commerce-problems/full/
Great article, easy to read. Local CoCs are leaving the extremist RW CoC in droves. It's become a disease, one that affects this nation's progress.
How the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Became the Greatest (Bumbling) Enemy of America.
The Politely Evil Empire: How the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Became the Greatest (Bumbling) Enemy of Americahttp://www.miaminewtimes.com/2014-01-30/news/us-chamber-of-commerce-problems/full/
Think of the U.S. Chamber as your crazy Uncle Ed. He spent too much time listening to talk radio, developed a raging victim complex, and came to believe the country was being destroyed by sloth and moochery. So he formed a lobbying group to defend the one true antidote: free enterprise.
The national organization was founded in 1912 to bring a greater business voice to Washington. It was always conservative. It was against America's rush to stop Hitler in World War II. It called Franklin Roosevelt's remedies for the Great Depression, among them social security, an attempt to "Sovietize" America. After the war, it cheered on Joe McCarthy's hunt for imaginary Commies.
snip
The group's guiding principle: If it might help regular people, the Chamber considers it heresy. Free enterprise should be absolutely free, this logic goes, even if it turns the country into Rwanda with nicer Burger Kings. Anything less is an outrage.
snip
Soon the U.S. Chamber began sounding less like the apostle of free markets and more like the official welfare agency of the golden-parachute set. Donohue called for drastic cuts to social programs. But he also wanted taxpayers to bail out BP after its Gulf spill, defended the oil industry's $12 billion annual welfare package, and was outworked by no one in protecting Wall Street banks from too-big-to-fail laws.
"The Chamber isn't really anti-government," says Damon Silvers, policy director of the AFL-CIO, a federation of some of the nation's largest unions. "They just want the government to be subordinate to big business."
The national organization was founded in 1912 to bring a greater business voice to Washington. It was always conservative. It was against America's rush to stop Hitler in World War II. It called Franklin Roosevelt's remedies for the Great Depression, among them social security, an attempt to "Sovietize" America. After the war, it cheered on Joe McCarthy's hunt for imaginary Commies.
snip
The group's guiding principle: If it might help regular people, the Chamber considers it heresy. Free enterprise should be absolutely free, this logic goes, even if it turns the country into Rwanda with nicer Burger Kings. Anything less is an outrage.
snip
Soon the U.S. Chamber began sounding less like the apostle of free markets and more like the official welfare agency of the golden-parachute set. Donohue called for drastic cuts to social programs. But he also wanted taxpayers to bail out BP after its Gulf spill, defended the oil industry's $12 billion annual welfare package, and was outworked by no one in protecting Wall Street banks from too-big-to-fail laws.
"The Chamber isn't really anti-government," says Damon Silvers, policy director of the AFL-CIO, a federation of some of the nation's largest unions. "They just want the government to be subordinate to big business."
Great article, easy to read. Local CoCs are leaving the extremist RW CoC in droves. It's become a disease, one that affects this nation's progress.
February 27, 2014
OK, Explain This To me Like I'm a Complete Idiot, Part 13: Small Businesses and Min. Wage Increase.
So on FB today, random small business owner was griping that, in regards to his business:
a) labor costs are running 38-40%
b) a minimum wage increase translates to an across-the-board increase for ALL employees
c) barely get by, work 60-80 hrs a week, blah blah blah (because your average working stiff, of course, doesn't even come close to that 
Not belittling him, but don't make this a dick-swinging contest).
d) a 20% increase in payroll would mean he would have to increase prices 20%
e) mega-corps can handle the wage increase, small businesses can't.
f) 12 people would be out of work and he'd have to close down.
Now, while this is a concern, here are my questions:
Is this situation the fault of the government for trying to make things an atom speck fairer for severely underpaid workers or is this situation the fault of said short-term/short-sighted small businessperson for being under the mistaken notion that the ridiculously low 7.25 an hour insult would remain in place for eternity? Is the small business owner under the notion that workers in 2014 are paid too much? Fact after chart after graph after study proves that idea dead freaking wrong, and if you have workers with no disposable income, there will be no DEMAND. That's not "Economics 101", that's Common Freaking Sense.
I mean, no one wants an entrepreneur to feel pain or close down. That's not what the intent of this discussion is about. I just have to understand why these people thought that they could get away with paying people a pittance forever . . . and it IS a pittance. With studies showing that 40% of workers now making LESS than the inflation-adjusted minimum wage of 1968, it borders on idiotic to think that a proper inflation correction (which used to be sound economics and sound capitalism but is now apparently "SOSHULTITS" in 2014) is "asking too much".
Is it that they just want every other company besides theirs to get demand going by increasing worker's wages? Or should it be phased in gradually for small businesses, right away for large ones? Is that a fair plan or is there more to it than that?
February 26, 2014
RWNJ Kevin O'Leary on CNBC: "Let's take a state, and remove the minimum wage for a year."
" . . . and see what happens."
Oh, and he's also arguing that "the market should decide the minimum wage" . . . should that be 8, 7 or 6 dollars an hour. Yeah, that 6 dollar/hour figure is also from him.
Unbelievable.
Anyone who thinks a 7.25 minimum wage is too high . . . yeah, I instantly don't take you seriously. AT all. Suggesting lower than that . . . well, you need to look up the term "Not Even Wrong".
10.10 isn't even a proper inflation correction.
Oh, and Kevin . . . aren't you CANADIAN??? What do YOU care what OUR wage is or what our market sets or whatever? I feel sorry for the citizens of that great nation now belching out nutters like this . .. and Harper.
February 20, 2014
A meme for the terminally clueless:
Don't usually delve into the Wonka memes, but had to make this one for the "bumper sticker brilliant" . . . .
February 16, 2014
All this talk of Christie giving the Failure Fuhrer love reminds me of a great artist . . .
February 13, 2014
Article was written by Robert Frank, the . . . are you ready . . . CNBC Wealth Editor.
Do we REALLY have a correspondent solely dedicated to reporting on and defending the extremely wealthy?
Can you say "Propaganda Arm", kids? I knew you could.
Villainous One Percent Dept: The poor should stop whining, says luxury CEO.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/poor-stop-whining-says-luxury-160846180.html?vp=1Bud Konheim has a message for all of the 99 percenters: You're luckier than you think.
Konheim, CEO and co-founder of luxury-fashion company Nicole Miller, said on CNBC's " Squawk Box " on Wednesday that Americans not in the top 1 percent would be considered wealthy in most of the world. He said the 99ers should stop complaining and understand how lucky they are.
"We've got a country that the poverty level is wealth in 99 percent of the rest of the world," he said. "So we're talking about woe is me, woe is us, woe is this." He added that "the guy that's making, oh my God, he's making $35,000 a year, why don't we try that out in India or some countries we can't even name. China, anyplace, the guy is wealthy."
Konheim's comments are sure to provoke the inequality crusaders. After all, here is the wealthy CEO of a luxury company that sells $800 sequined dresses and $250 clutches saying that people who make $35,000 a year should be grateful.
(snip)
But as we all know, wealth is relative to those around you-and the costs of the country and city or town that you live in. Even Konheim would admit that $35,000 may go a long way in rural India or China, but it would be a struggle in many parts of the U.S.
Konheim, CEO and co-founder of luxury-fashion company Nicole Miller, said on CNBC's " Squawk Box " on Wednesday that Americans not in the top 1 percent would be considered wealthy in most of the world. He said the 99ers should stop complaining and understand how lucky they are.
"We've got a country that the poverty level is wealth in 99 percent of the rest of the world," he said. "So we're talking about woe is me, woe is us, woe is this." He added that "the guy that's making, oh my God, he's making $35,000 a year, why don't we try that out in India or some countries we can't even name. China, anyplace, the guy is wealthy."
Konheim's comments are sure to provoke the inequality crusaders. After all, here is the wealthy CEO of a luxury company that sells $800 sequined dresses and $250 clutches saying that people who make $35,000 a year should be grateful.
(snip)
But as we all know, wealth is relative to those around you-and the costs of the country and city or town that you live in. Even Konheim would admit that $35,000 may go a long way in rural India or China, but it would be a struggle in many parts of the U.S.
Article was written by Robert Frank, the . . . are you ready . . . CNBC Wealth Editor.
Do we REALLY have a correspondent solely dedicated to reporting on and defending the extremely wealthy?
Can you say "Propaganda Arm", kids? I knew you could.
February 4, 2014
Stealing. That's right on the money.
February 2, 2014
It's just that they say "Supersize yer skill set, haw haw"; but the thing is, lots of people HAVE done that and ARE doing that, whether it's through degrees, certification, credentials, training, etc. and it doesn't really appear to be paying off as it should be. Wages haven't moved with inflation since 1979. We're creating jobs, but what are they paying? Are they on par with the birth/death rate and the incoming/outgoing work force? They don't appear to have answers other than "life isn't fair".
OK, Explain This To me Like I'm a Complete Idiot, Part 12: Working Harder and Making Better Choices?
If education and lack of skills were the crux of America's economic problems (as most Conservative pundits and peasants will repeat ad nauseum), can you explain to me why we now have the most educated workforce; more credentialed and certified than any time in our history, but a 13-year track record of such dismally weak job creation and wage gains to SHOW for it?It's just that they say "Supersize yer skill set, haw haw"; but the thing is, lots of people HAVE done that and ARE doing that, whether it's through degrees, certification, credentials, training, etc. and it doesn't really appear to be paying off as it should be. Wages haven't moved with inflation since 1979. We're creating jobs, but what are they paying? Are they on par with the birth/death rate and the incoming/outgoing work force? They don't appear to have answers other than "life isn't fair".
February 1, 2014
Dear God Danny, you CANNOT be this DAFT.
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1840&bih=921&q=inflation+adjusted+wages+since+1979&oq=inflation+adjusted+wages+since+1979&gs_l=img.3...1238.8216.0.8559.35.12.0.22.22.0.104.775.11j1.12.0....0...1ac.1.32.img..11.24.812.Lf620gk3Hoo
"The Myth Of Wage Stagnation" . .. is there NO LOW CNBC will not descend to?
So now we're getting our paid shills in the form of assistant professors at Troy University?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101373237
Looking at just average hourly wages — adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — shows that earnings increased only 5.58 percent since 1964. However, this statistic and others like it are misleading because they do not factor in new forms of growing employee compensation and they overstate the erosion of purchasing power. Once these contributions are taken into account, a much more clear — and positive — picture of the average incomes surfaces.
Over the last few decades, employees have been receiving an increasingly larger portion of their overall compensation in the form of benefits such as health care, paid vacation time, hour flexibility, improved work environments and even daycare. Ignoring the growth of these benefits and looking at only wages provides a grossly incomplete picture of well-being, and the increase in compensation for work. While it is difficult to adjust for all of these benefits that workers are now receiving, one measure of wage and salary supplements show they have nearly tripled since 1964. Total compensation, which adds these benefits to wages and salaries, shows that earnings have actually increased more than 45 percent since 1964.
Over the last few decades, employees have been receiving an increasingly larger portion of their overall compensation in the form of benefits such as health care, paid vacation time, hour flexibility, improved work environments and even daycare. Ignoring the growth of these benefits and looking at only wages provides a grossly incomplete picture of well-being, and the increase in compensation for work. While it is difficult to adjust for all of these benefits that workers are now receiving, one measure of wage and salary supplements show they have nearly tripled since 1964. Total compensation, which adds these benefits to wages and salaries, shows that earnings have actually increased more than 45 percent since 1964.
Dear God Danny, you CANNOT be this DAFT.
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1840&bih=921&q=inflation+adjusted+wages+since+1979&oq=inflation+adjusted+wages+since+1979&gs_l=img.3...1238.8216.0.8559.35.12.0.22.22.0.104.775.11j1.12.0....0...1ac.1.32.img..11.24.812.Lf620gk3Hoo
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Member since: Fri Aug 13, 2004, 03:12 PMNumber of posts: 24,461
