"The Millionaire Next Door" and "The Millionaire Mind"

     So I wanted to comment some on the books "The Millionaire Next Door" and "The Millionaire Mind." Basically, these books purport to tell us how most of the "real' millionaires in the United States live their lives. According to the books, most of them do not live lives anywhere near the pop culture image of how a rich person lives their lives. Instead, most of them tend to live very modest lives, living in ordinary middle-class homes, in middle-class neighborhoods, driving older cars that they often bought used, using coupons, and so forth. The way in which most of these people achieved their wealth is through living this way. The book points out that many people (even most people?) living affluent-seeming lifestyles, i.e. big home in nice neighborhood, nice cars, clothes, etc...are oftentimes living at or beyond their means.
     I had a few major problems with the books. One is their use of the word millionaire to essentially mean a "rich" person. To imply to the reader that most of America's rich do not live the pop culture stereotype of the rich person (private jets, yachts, mansions, luxury cars, etc...). The problem is that, people with a net worth of $1 to $2 million, who make up a large amount of the people referred to in the book, are not rich. $1 million in liquid wealth is not rich today, let alone $1 million or so in wealth that is tied up in assets such as a house for example. Thus a large amount of the book's people would have to be discounted. Truly "rich" people are those who can very comfortably afford an affluent or the "jet-set" lifestyle if you will. Which means that, even if they choose not to, they can easily afford to drive luxury cars, live in a large home in an expensive neighborhood, send their children to private school, take nice vacations, eat out at expensive restaurants, etc...if one cannot live like this comfortably, then one is not "rich" (and even living like this isn't so much rich as affluent---rich is when you can start affording a mansion, chartering yachts and private jets, taking expensive vacations, and so forth).
     The second problem I had was the notion (at least this is how I took it) that people who live luxury lifestyles want them because to them it is all about status, looking good, and so forth, and that there is something inherently wrong with this, while living the frugal lifestyle is very moral and noble, even if one can easily afford to live the luxury lifestyle. The books never seem to entertain the notion that some people may have expensive tastes simply because the expensive stuff is just a lot nicer than the less-expensive stuff.
     Not everyone wants to just live in a white picket fence home in a middle-class neighborhood. Not everyone wants to drive a ten year-old Toyota Camry. Not everyone wants to wear inexpensive clothing and shop at Cost Co and Wal-Mart and so forth. Now don't get me wrong. I fully understand the argument that one should not live beyond their means and that the person who earns $40K a year, but lives a modest lifestyle, doesn't live beyond their means, saves, and works hard, is living more wisely than the doctor making $700K a year, but who is living beyond his means, living in a very nice neighborhood, in an expensive home, driving luxury cars, etc...but the problem I have with these books is that they seem to think that if people want to live the way the doctor is living, that there is something wrong with this.
     To me, there is nothing wrong with wanting to have nice things and live the nice lifestyle, even the jet-set lifestyle. The important thing is just to make sure that one can actually afford it. If you earn an income that let's you comfortably live like the doctor, then great! There's nothing bad about that. You just have more expensive tastes than some others. There are some very wealthy people who choose to live very modest lifestyles. An example could be the founder of ABC Supply, a roofing supply distributor whose owner was worth a few billion dollars. He died a few years ago though. Howso? He fell through his own roof. How does a multi-billionaire fall through his own roof? Because he lived in a middle-class home. That was just how he preferred to live. What was he doing up on the roof? Well he was having work done on the home and was up inspecting something and accidentally fell through!
     There are also less extreme examples of the modest super-wealthy person, for example Warren Buffett. Much has been made about how Buffett still lives in the same home he bought years ago. Thing is, it's a 5,000+ square-foot home. No, not anything like a 30,000 square-foot mansion, but a 5,000 square-foot home is nothing small either. It's plenty comfortable. He also uses a private jet. He drives I think a Lincoln Town Car. He is a man who just is not that into material luxuries is all. But that doesn't mean he lives super-cheap either. If a 5,000 square-foot home, a Lincoln Town Car, and a private jet are all you desire in terms of material luxuries, that's fine. He is the epitomy of a wealthy person not living cheaply, but living to the level of luxury they desire.
     But if you DO desire the expensive sports cars that cost half a million a piece, a private jet, a couple of 30,000 square-foot mansions, a yacht, etc...that's fine too. And if you want to live that lifestyle, there's nothing wrong in striving for it. All those people saying you need to live extremely frugally, well that isn't going to cut it there. What will happen is that you live very frugally, then one day far in the future, when you are in your 50s or 60s, and your youth is behind you, you are now worth a few million dollars. Well if you have no problem living frugally that's fine. But if you want to live the luxury lifestyle, it is a problem. Because even with a few million, it's not nearly enough money, and even if it was, who wants to have to work hard, living very frugally until their old age, to be wealthy? You want to be able to produce sizable wealth while you're still young (by "young," I mean age 20 to 45).
     The other thing to keep in mind is that money doesn't buy happiness, so don't think the material items will make you happy. The problems I see are the people who try to live the luxury lifestyle but who can't really afford it. Don't do that. And also the people who only want to live the luxury lifestyle solely for status. Now if you can afford it and want the status, well fine, but don't live beyond your means solely to maintain status.
     I really wish the authors of the book could have found a couple of truly wealthy people, but ones who were self-made and, while living what would be defined by most people as a luxury lifestyle, are still living within their means (just they have very large means!). So for example, a guy worth $300 million, but who is totally self-made, started with nothing, worked hard, and while he lives in a mansion and has luxury cars, doesn't try to live beyond his means (yes, rich people worth hundreds of millions can end up living beyond their means, as there is always someone else who is richer).
     Some people I have read say that when you live frugally in order to build wealth, that by the time you get the wealth built, you have lived frugally for so long that you no longer desire the luxuries you once wanted now that you can afford them. This always makes me feel like launching a tirade, because, while they may not mean it, it just comes across as a form of condescension, basically saying that desiring wealth is pointless, because you (supposedly) won't want the stuff once you can afford it. Well personally, I really think that depends on the person.
     Usually, people who say this kind of stuff I think are the people who have had the opportunity to live said lifestyle for awhile, before tiring of it, and deciding they want to revert to a simpler lifestyle. If that's what they desire, then fine by them. But don't tell someone who hasn't had such luxuries that they won't desire them if they work hard and productively enough to be able to afford them. That's like a man who regularly has slept with stunningly beautiful women saying to a guy who hasn't had access to such women but who has a decent sex drive, "You know man, sex with beautiful women really isn't all it's cracked up to be. You find that what you really desire is to find a nice, decent gal who will like you for who you are, and you don't focus so much on looks..." yes, you'd feel like slapping the guy. Sure, he can feel that way, because he's had the opportunity to have sex with all those beautiful women!
     It's like a person criticizing the First World standard-of-living to a person living in Third World poverty, saying that the First World "isn't all it's cracked up to be." There are quite a few people I'll bet that very much desire to live the luxury lifestyle, and when they can afford it, they will live that way. If they then tire of it and decide later on to live a "simpler," cheaper lifestyle, then so be it.
     As for those who desire luxuries that they have never had, but live frugally, work hard, then by the time they are able to afford said luxuries, they find out that they no longer desire them, well good for them, but that doesn't mean that is how other people will be. Many people could desire luxuries, but be willing to live a life of poverty for a decade to build their fortune, so that they can then live a much nicer lifestyle. It depends on the person. I think what is more realistic is simply that a person who lives frugally while building a fortune, that once they acquire said fortune, they will not just suddenly become careless with money. They may not clip coupons or shop at Wal-Mart anymore, but they aren't going to just throw money down the toilet either. They will be the type of rich person for example where they will not purchase a vacation home that will sit empty for the majority of the year while costing them money. To justify another home, it must be one they use quite often. And so forth. 
     Technically, at the end of the day, everyone desires to live a wealthy lifestyle. The question is, just how wealthy? Because aside form the homeless, almost all First World standards of living, by historical and global standards, are wealthy. If you live in a trailer somewhere but have a working vehicle with power windows, door locks, heater, air conditioning, radio, etc...a refrigerator, freezer, air conditioning, heating, shower, hot and cold water, toilet, Internet, flat-screen television, cable, computer, etc...with access to all restaurants, movies, supermarkets, and all the other innumerable goodies in our society, then by Third World society standards, you're rich! No one living in true poverty who works hard to reach a middle-class standard of living (rich to them), is going to say, "Eh, this middle-class standard of living isn't all it's cracked up to be, I think I'll just go back to the Third World standard with no clean water, no electricity, no basic sanitation, no decent quality food, etc..." That's not going to happen!
     So the question really is, just how rich does one desire to be? For some, First World middle-class is all the wealth they require. As long as they have a nice home, in a decent okay neighborhood, working vehicle, the basic appliances, and financial security, then they are happy. Others, however, desire a more lavish lifestyle. And again, nothing wrong with this, so long as one is willing to work for it, one recognizes that material items do not bring happiness by themselves, and one makes sure that they can truly afford said lifestyle as opposed to being one of those 30K millionaires*.

* "30K Millionaire refers to a person who is not wealthy or even affluent, but uses all sorts of ways to leverage themselves to the hilt so as to be able to look wealthy to others 

Bubble Possibly?

Facebook buys a company with no revenue (yes no revenue---this is not a case of revenue, but no profit yet, but literally no revenue even) for $1 billion: LINK

Two Deaths

News legend Mike Wallace (father of Fox News guy Chris Wallace) died over the weekend at age 93 (LINK) and computer industry legend and gaming pioneer Jack Tremiel has died at age 83 (LINK). May both of them Rest In Peace. Both were awesome guys too when you read about them, Wallace as a news guy and Tremiel as a Holocaust survivor who emigrated to America and became a titan of industry.

Thomas Kinkade, the "Painter of Light," Has Died At 54 Years of Age

     Too young of an age to cut out. Kinkade's work was beloved by millions of people. Having viewed some of it, I can see why. The art establishment, not too surprising, HATED his art. I think this is for two, and possibly three to four, reasons:

1) Aesthetically-beautiful - The snobby people that make up much of the art world absolutely disdain any art that is aesthetically beautiful. To them, if it is aesthetically beautiful, then it's not art. This probably has to do with the reasoning that the "masses" will love aesthetically-beautiful art, and thus anything aesthetically beautiful cannot be considered "real" or "true" art. Now don't get wrong, what the masses like isn't always correct. There are objective standards to things I think. Far more of the masses like Justin Bieber over Beethoven I'd bet, but I think Beethoven produced far superior music to Justin Bieber! Far more of the masses like pointless Hollywood movie franchises while you could have a very quality film with great plot, character development, etc...that doesn't do nearly as well, but is true art. And not all (painted) art has to be aesthetically-beautiful. But just because art is aesthetically beautiful doesn't mean it isn't art and just because the masses like it doesn't mean it isn't art.
     The difference between something like painted art as Kinkade produces and much of modern art is that aesthetically beautiful art takes actual skill to produce. No random person can just paint a beautiful picture. It takes some serious skill. Which is why, in my opinion, that so many people love his work doesn't at all devalue it. By an objective point-of-view, he was a good artist.
     Even with music, this can be very true. Although there is a lot of, well, crap music-wise that the masses like to listen to, there's also a lot of objectively good stuff as well. For example, certain works by Madonna, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Sarah Brightman, etc...I think are fantastic. They require real talent to create, are totally original, and bring joy to their listeners. So that the masses like or don't like something and that the "elites" like or don't like something probably doesn't really tell us anything about whether a film, book, music, painting, etc...is objectively a good work or not. And there's always some subjectivity there too. And I am veering way off on a tangent here!

2) Commercialism - This is a definite negative in the art world, populated by far leftists and hence socialists and people who disdain business, commerce, capitalism, commercialism, you name it. Selling art for commercial purposes is HERESY to many of them. Selling aesthetically beautiful art on things like mugs, prints, clocks, music boxes, etc...as Kinkade did, is absolute heresy!

3) Christian theme - If you notice, anti-Christian themes are perfectly acceptable in the modern art world. Take a cross of Jesus Christ and stick it into a jar of urine? It's art. Take a statue of Jesus Christ and cover it in dung? Art. Other crazies are things like a melting toilet, a stuffed shark, or taking an empty cigarette box and nailing it to a piece of cardboard. In I think it was the late 1970s, a trick was even played on the art world where someone let a chimpanzee splash paint on a canvas randomly. Critics hailed the "work" as "genius."
     Kinkade's work, on the other hand, was very Christian and very patriotic. Nothing anti-Christian or anti-American. So probably not going to engender much popularity among the politically left-leaning people who make up so much of the art world "establishment."

4) Jealousy - I'll bet there's a dose of just plain old-fashioned jealousy on the part of much of the art world that a guy like Kinkade produces such art (aesthetically-beautiful, patriotic, and Christian), and was so successful.

Mr. Kinkade made millions of people very happy and made lots of money doing it, so good for him. He also didn't care what the art world thought of him. What will be interesting is to see how he is treated in the coming decades, or even centuries, as so many artists that are now valuable were disdained during the times they lived by the establishment. Will Kinkade be the same, eventually becoming accepted by the art establishment now that he's dead?

The Constitution As a Living Document

     One thing I just wanted to write about is the issue of the Constitution of the United States and whether or not it is a "living document." There seems to be some confusion on this. Among the conservatives, Republicans, and Libertarians, the Constitution is sacred and we should strive to appoint strict constructionist justices to the Court. Many on the Left, however, do not like (and have never liked since the days of Woodrow Wilson) the Constitution. They say that the Constitution is out-dated (according to Woodrow Wilson it was out-dated even then!), and should be flat-out replaced even, as the Founding Fathers never could have envisioned all of the things that have come about now (nuclear weapons, satellite, computers, the Internet, etc...). They say that the conservative view of interpreting the Constitution "as it is written" is too restrictive and not realistic for modern times.
     Well I am not a lawyer, but I wonder if some of people saying this have the first clue what they are talking about on the subject (there was an article written not too long ago in either Time magazine or Newsweek where the author makes these claims, and they are supposed to be some scholar of the history of the Constitution). The thing is, the people saying this seem to completely misunderstand just how the Constitution was written. For starters, they are correct, in that the Founders couldn't have forseen all of the ways in which society would change. But the thing is, the Founders themselves were well aware of this, and included a provision in the Constitution that was revolutionary at the time, called the amendment clause. The amendment clause allows the nation to amend the Constitution, i.e. to adapt and change it if we need to. Which we have done throughout the years, starting with the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments), and then with the following amendments that have been added (such as the 13th Amendment which outlaws slavery, the 19th Amendment which protects a woman's right to vote, and so forth). The Constitution is not meant to be some unchanging, inflexible document. To the contrary, it is very much meant to be changed according to the times.
     Which means that the Leftists implying that the conservative view of the Constitution in that it is to be rigid and unchanging is simply incorrect. This was really exemplified I think when Whoopie Goldberg asked John McCain in 2008, when he was saying on the show "The View" that he would like to appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court, whether she needs to worry about becoming a slave. McCain, unfortunately, had no clue how to handle the question, and instead responded by saying he understands her concern, while the audience gave Whoopie a huge applause. In other words, neither Whoopie, John McCain, or the audience, understood just how the Constitution is written! Many on the Left and even some on the Right do not seem to really understand the Constitution (that it is meant to be a flexible document)
     The other reason I think many on the Left call for the Constitution to be re-written is that many do not like that it is written to limit the powers of the government. Afterall, when your political ideology calls for the government to regulate and control all sorts of aspects of people's lives and the economy, and for the government to have a lot of power, a document that specifically limits the powers of said government is not going to be viewed very favorably by said people (similarly, many on the religious Rightwing don't like the part of the First Amendment that separates church and state). We have seen this from Woodrow Wilson as I mentioned when he was President, to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, under whom the Supreme Court declared un-Constitutional multiple pieces of his New Deal, not because they disagreed with the legislation itself, but because they saw it that the legislation was combining the powers of the Executive and the Legislative branches. FDR responded by threatening to pack the Supreme Court.
     Now the Left's idea thus of the Constitution being a living document is essentially that you can interpret it to mean what you want it to mean. The problem with this view is that this essentially renders the whole document worthless. It doesn't make much sense to have a document that the government can just twist to justify whatever legislation they please.
     Many on the Left scoff at the view held by many on the Right that the Constitution is sacred. They see this as a way of sort of deifying the Founding Fathers in a way that is illogical and based on false nostalgia. But I disagree. The U.S. Constitution, when you look at it in comparison with other Constitutions, is an absolutely brilliantly-written piece of work. Since being written, there have been thousands of other constitutions written throughout the world. Most are hundreds or even thousands of pages long, because they try to cover every possible issue, and as such, after a few years, become obsolete. They thus fail to sustain the governments created by them for more than a few decades at the most.
     The American Constitution, on the other hand, is timeless, because the Founding Fathers, in their incredible wisdom, created what is a very short, brief document (around only ten pages) that only covers the really big stuff, and leaves all the other stuff up to others. It creates a framework of rules, values, and ideas that guide the three branches of government created by it in legislating, interpreting, and enforcing the various laws we as a society need.
     In creating the laws however, they are to be in-line with the often silent Constitution. If there is a disagreement in how the Constitution should see those laws, then it is the job of the Supreme Court to decide whether they are Constitutional or not, and justices on the Court are supposed to put their politics away and interpret the Constitution according to how it is written, not how they would like it to be written. As such, our Constitution has sustained our government for thus far 200+ years. And it is for these reasons that, to me, the Constitution is in fact a document that we should consider sacred. In terms of how it checks the powers of the government, the Founders did a very fine job. Now if we find that the Founders got something wrong with the Constitution, or flat-out forgot somethng, or just some part of it is now flat-out out-dated and in need of change, well then, that's what the amendment process as I mentioned is for.
     And in this, the Founders were also smart. They understood that while we as a nation need the ability to change the Constitution if necessary, that the process should not be too easy, because then all you'd need is the proper political majority and the Constitution would end up getting amended all the time to suit particular political agendas (both of the religious Rightwing and the big-government Leftwing). For example, you have people among the religious Right who want a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. And you have people on the Left who want to amend the Constitution to get rid of the Second Amendment (because according to them, no sophisticated, progressive society in the modern 21st century can possibly be one in which the people are to be entrusted with the ownership of firearms (eyeroll on my part)), and also amend it to say things such as food, housing, healthcare, etc...are all to be considered rights (rights are abstract things, not goods and services however...by that line of reasoning, then the Second Amendment "right to bear arms" should mean the government has to use taxpayer money to make sure every citizen is armed with a firearm).
     So the Founders made the amendment process difficult. To amend the Constitution, you either need a two-thirds vote from both houses of Congress and then three-fourths of the state legislatures, or you can call a Constitutional convention (which requires two-thirds of the state legislatures) in which at least one or more amendments can be proposed to the Constitution, and then you again need three-fourths of the state legislatures to vote in favor of it. In the history of our nation thus far, the Constitution has only been amended by the former method, never via a Constitutional Convention. Despite the difficulty of getting an amendment passed, quite a few of them have been passed, including very important ones (outlawing slavery and protecting a woman's right to vote along with others), so it isn't as if the amendment process makes it impossible to amend the Constitution. Just it isn't something that can be done with any simple political majority.
     Now when one sees all of this, it really throws a wrench into the whole left-wing idea that the Constitution should be re-written to "bring it up to speed with the times." Because if you give it a few years (let alone a few decades), the Constitution will AGAIN likely be obsolete if it was re-written in such a manner. So it would be silly to try re-writing it.
     So to conclude, the Constitution is very much meant to be a flexible, changing, adaptable document, but it is a timeless document as well that spells out pretty clearly the limitations of the government's powers.

Build or Buy?

Article on whether to build or buy when trying to expand your business: Deciding how to expand

Hollywood Is Truly, Fully, 100% Out of Ideas

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter