Stop Lying to Your Children

I hate to bring that dose of reality to your life. But you will never be wealthy.
That's OK, neither will I.

That isn't to say you won't become "rich," however, the definition of "rich" is subjective. I'm probably rich when compared to some poor soul out there.

Take a look at your life. It probably isn't that much economically different than the lives of your parents or the lives of their parents. If you were born and raised middle class (whether it be lower, middle or upper), chances are you probably also turned out to be middle class. If you are in the 20-40 something age range, you probably also carry more debt than your parents did.

When I was a kid, I always thought that my parents were poor. As I became older, I realized that my parents weren't poor.
They were ludicrously fucking cheap.

There is something to be said for being frugal, but being cheap to the point where you won't even splurge every once in a while to enjoy life is just wrong.

They say you can't take it with you, so why not use some of it while you're here?
But I'm getting sidetracked.....

My reason for bringing up the harsh reality about the fact that you will never be President and you will never run elbows with Bill Gates or Warren Buffett at a fundraising luncheon is the simple fact that what they say really is true.
It takes money to make money.

If you don't believe me, try starting a successful business with no money. Take whatever you have in your pocket right now, write up a business plan and head straight to your nearest bank to apply for financing.
They'll laugh you right out of the place. I don't care how good your plan may be; how foolproof; how guaranteed to turn a profit starting immediately.
You can't get money without first having access to money.
Ironic isn't it?

Thus, those born into money, and to a lesser extent, those who have above average amounts of money can just continue making more money.

Those of us just getting by may be able to start a small business to bolster our current income or maybe even make enough to quit the day job.

But we will never be wealthy.

Now, I don't have kids. Probably never will.
But if I did, I would have to explain to them at some point that the world of finance and politics is corrupt, the news is scripted bullshit, Santa Claus does not exist, the Kennedys were drug dealing mafia assholes and you can still get pregnant even if you jump up and down afterward.

The American Dream, if it ever fully existed, is dead. The system is designed to keep the rich rich, the poor poor and the rest of us fighting to get by as we support the two extremes at either end of the bells curve.
Think about it.

Many laws and regulations are set into motion because of money.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, let's look at marijuana laws. Now, weed is perfectly legal. There are a few people in this country who receive this legal weed directly from the U.S. government. If you are willing to jump through the ridiculous hoops, and if you can somehow miraculously get the shit approved, you too can grow and sell your very own Alaskan Thunderfuck.
But the government rarely approves things like that. There are literally a million and one way for them to reject your application.
Why not just tax the shit out of you?

Because they make more money by throwing you in jail.
It's justification for hiring more cops, building more prisons, enacting more laws to restrict your freedom and your pocketbook.
If you go to prison for something stupid and petty like weed, you're still a felon when you get out.
Legally, prospective employers can't ask you why the fuck you were in prison, so for all they know, you killed someone and enjoyed their liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
And thus, you get stuck in the system. Maybe you need welfare and/or food stamp assistance because that fast food job you had to take just isn't cutting it.

The middle class pays for that.

El Presidente Dubya and his buddies opted for bank deregulation so that any cheesedick idiot could get  car loan, home loan, boat loan so that Dubya and his Roquefort-dicked buddies could make more money. More money by hiding interest charges and talking people into ARM loans they really couldn't afford. More money by freeing up credit people really should have to buy things they really can't afford.
And don't kid yourself. The economy has only crashed for me and you. The rich are becoming even richer in the "bad economic climate."
Oil and gas companies are gouging you not because they need to, but because they can. Banks are tacking on hidden fees and other surprises not wrapped up in shiny bows to fuck you out of your money and keep their own coffers full. Businesses are continually downsizing and operating on leaner structures in order to ensure that the profit margins continue to rise even though it means that thousands of Americans are currently without work.

The wealthy could change all of this.
But they won't.
I mean, the richest 400 Americans are all worth at least  $1 billion. I know people that are worth $1 or $2 million but I've never met anyone worth a billion! That's 1000 times richer than my richest acquaintances.
These billionaires pay, on average, about 18% in taxes.....which I think is probably an inflated bullshit number as well. I don't believe they even pay that. The ultra-rich and the wealthy have tax havens, and shelters and shell corporations to move that money around to avoid such taxes.
Oprah, Obama and Bill Gates don;t set up charities because they are wonderful god damned people. They do it to avoid having to pay taxes.
I'd do it too if I had enough money to hide.

While these assholes have more tricks than Penn and Teller, you and I fork over 30% or more of our hard earned income to support the fucks at either end of the scale. We pay into Social Security and Medicaid that we'll never see; welfare we'll hopefully never have to use; we pay premiums for home and car loans; we dole out bank and credit card fees because we can't seem to save enough for that all inevitable rainy day.
It's like that movie "Up" where the couple save up for their dream vacation to Paradise Falls, but shit always happens that depletes their savings. Then she dies, he's left to try and fend off the corporate assholes that want to turn his home into condos. He travels off in search of Paradise Falls and while en route meets his childhood hero who turns out to be a corrupt asshole.

That's some real shit!

I honestly believe that is why that movie was so popular. I think that deep down, we as middle-class Americans know that's exactly how life is going to play out.

Don't kid yourself into thinking that these assholes got to be where they are on their own.It takes an entire village  (albeit a large one with seemingly conflicting ideals) of fucking assholes to produce one little asshole like Mark Zuckerberg or Barack Obama.
Yes I said it. Yes I use Facebook and think it's a great product. But I don't think Zuckerberg is a genius and I didn't vote for Obama.
Now, I'm not saying that Zuckerberg is as big of a crook as people make him out to be either.

Mark Zuckerberg took someone else's idea and tweaked it. Nothing inherently wrong with that. Someone else took that idea to market in order to make it lucrative...not Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg is a programmer, not a businessman.

But any way you slice it, Zuckerberg was a Harvard student, as were Bill Gates, Teddy Roosevelt, Dubya, Obama,Costa Rican President  Jose Maria Figueres and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Normal kids don't attend Harvard unless Harvard gets something out of it. The same goes for Stanford, Yale, Notre Dame, Brown and any other high priced school you can think of.

While attending college at the prestigious Eastern Washington University campus, I met and fraternized with.....get this.....people like me!!
Holy fuck what a concept.
I was just an average guy middle class kid with average grades. Most of my friends were average middle class kids, although the grades varied. There were a few rich kids on campus, but there weren't any Vanderbilts or Waltons.

Had I been a wealthy kid who attended an ivy league school, I would have been able to befriend other wealthy kids with various business connections and thus create more wealth for myself and my family.
It takes money to make money.

Nobody creates a life by themselves.

My dad is an airline pilot. Had I wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a flyboy, it would have been relatively easy for me. My dad has an airplane that I could have practiced and built airtime in. He knows people at various flight schools and when the time came, he knows enough people in that industry that I probably could have gotten hired by a major airline.

I bet you don't have those connections.

And I don't have the connections that you have via your family/friend/professional networks. And none of us have Bill Gates or Barack Obama's connections.

Yet that is what is needed to become President, to become a billionaire, live the American dream.

So stop lying to the children and telling them anything is possible. Either that, or change the dream.
Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream......and they murdered him.