RICH COHORT GETS YOUNGER

#rich #young #YoungAndRich #superrich
A survey of U.S. investors with $25 million or more says the average age has dropped by 11 years, to 47 years old.
The ranks of these Americans has doubled since the depths of the Great Recession.
The average age of those with a mere $1 million is 62, a number that hasn’t budged in years.
These figures come from an article by Ben Steverman for Bloomberg. I was also published Jan. 24, 2019, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
About 172,000 U.S. households have a net worth of at least $25 million, The article says. That up from 84,000 in 2008. The study was created by the Spectrum Group, according to the article.
The “vast generational transfer of wealth” is “just beginning,” the article quotes George Walper Jr., president of the Spectrum Group.
The article doesn’t spell out how these folks are getting rich, but here are a few theories.
First, they could have invested well in the stock market, which crashed big time during the Great Recession. A big, universal downturn in the markets creates numerous buying opportunities for those willing to take a chance on them.
Even the casual observer has seen the market go up like crazy over the last decade, so those buying opportunities – at least many of them – have paid off handsomely.
Another theory, as Walper suggests, is that older rich folks are dying, and giving their wealth to their children.
A third theory is a rise in entrepreneurship. Young folks have seen a need, or created a product, that has become very popular. Think Uber, Lyft, scooter rentals in cities etc.
Here’s an area that can make ANYONE rich, who is willing to explore it. You certainly don’t have to create a new product, or meet a need. You just have to be willing to look at ideas that are not necessarily new, but could be new to you.
There are many vehicles out there that can produce wealth for anyone, with any background, education etc. You don’t even need to be a genius. You just need to learn a system and be coachable.To check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
Amid the doom and gloom you may have witnessed in the last decade, these stats should give you a glimmer of hope. Prosperity is there for those willing to look for it. It is there for those who, rather than wallow in their circumstances, are willing to embrace something new.
And, it doesn’t matter whether you are young or older. You just need to be willing to see something that looks very promising, and go with it, no matter what you might be told is best for you.
Our parents, at least those of us who grew up in more modest households, have told us to look for security, a good job, good benefits and stay there until we retire. That was SAFE.
Yet, such situations today are rare. Few jobs are safe. Few lifestyles are secure. Few futures are certain.
Increasingly, it is up to you to determine your prosperity. Certainly, if you choose certain paths, there are many out there willing to help you. But, you have to DO it.
If you don’t see yourself as young and rich, that’s OK. But think about the life YOU want, and know there are ways out there to get it. You just have to be willing to look for them.
Peter

HAPPY NEW YEAR! MAKE ’18 GREAT

#HappyNewYear #Make2018Great #joy #prosperity
Another year is about to begin.
We can look at it, to borrow from the song “Sixteen Tons” that Tennessee Ernie Ford helped make famous, as “another (year) older and deeper in debt.”
We can look at it as “how am I going to make it another year?”
Or, we can look at it as, “it’s going to be the best year ever.”
It’s not just how you think about the new year, it’s how you are going to MAKE the new year your best ever.
You may think, “how am I going to make the new year great, if things aren’t going great now?”
Well, you may have to look for something better. You could even be lucky, and something better will just serendipitously come along to make your life better. If that happens, you have to have the wherewithal to recognize it.
In other words, you have to be open to new things, even if they are things you’d never dreamed would be part of your life.
Pessimism partly comes from pigeon-holing your life. You may have even been taught that “this is what you were destined to do.” When that destiny disappears, you may think your destiny has gone with it.
Optimism partly comes from knowing that you deserve something better in your life, and making yourself available to it. It’s been said that good fortune comes to those who prepare for it.
If you are open to making your 2018 great, and are looking for a vehicle to help you do that, there are many such vehicles out there. To check out one of the best, message me.
Meanwhile, take stock of what is good in your life. How can you use what is already good in your life to make your new year even better?
How can you take the turning of a calendar and turn it into the life you’ve always wanted?
Don’t let a good cup of coffee, or whatever your favorite beverage is, just sit and get cold. Drink it while it’s hot, or at its best. Propose a toast that your new year will be filled with the joy and prosperity you deserve.
If things aren’t what you want them to be, the change must begin with you. To borrow from a spiritual song, “let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.”
The world is filled with issues and circumstances that could lead one to think there is little to celebrate. You may even have personal circumstances that can allow you to believe that struggle is just part of life.
Struggle CAN be part of life, certainly, but it doesn’t have to run your life.
So make a resolution to let 2018 be a great year. Then, make a promise to yourself that you will not just LET it be a great year, you will MAKE it a great year.
Peter

IMMIGRANTS BENEFIT ECONOMY

#immigration #prosperity #workforce
Believe it or not, to quote the first line of a newspaper editorial, “immigrants are not the enemy.”
The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville commented on reports compiled by the bipartisan Partnership for A New American Economy showing how immigrants are contributing to the workforce, tax rolls and the overall economy, the editorial reads. It was published in the Aug. 14, 2016, edition.
In Tennessee, the newspaper says, 300,000 residents are foreign-born, or nearly 5 percent of the state’s population. But, they make up 6 percent of the state’s workforce, the editorial says. In 1990, immigrants made up only 1.2 percent of Tennessee’s population.
The editorial cites some notable stats from the report:
• Immigrants annually earn $7.9 billion, pay $493 million in taxes and have the spending power of $5.9 billion.
• They make up 7.8 percent of entrepreneurs.
• They are 32 percent more likely to work than the native-born population (57.8 percent of employed immigrants vs. 43.7 percent of employed natives.)
• Immigrants make up 7 percent of jobs in science, technology, engineering and math (the STEM skills).
Meanwhile, in an article published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Aug. 15, 2016, Tim Henderson of the Tribune News Service writes that many officials in small towns nationwide that have lost population in recent years are asking that refugees from the Middle East and elsewhere be relocated to their towns to take jobs they can’t fill, live in apartments and houses that are now vacant and to shop in local stores. The refugees will take the places of native-born residents who’ve moved elsewhere in large numbers.
Immigrants have basically gotten a bad reputation. Some see them as moochers, stealers of benefits and taking opportunities away from native-born Americans. The report, on which the Tennessean editorial was based, tells a different tale.
“(Undocumented workers) are demonized for their legal status, but overall they are giving back more to society than they are getting back,” the editorial says.
Undocumented workers, “though they don’t directly benefit from federal and state aid, but they annually earn $2.1 billion, pay $250 million in state and federal taxes and have $1.8 billion in spending power, “ the editorial says.
Immigrants do jobs native-born Americans won’t do. They are doing many highly technical jobs – not just manual labor – that relatively few native-born Americans are qualified for. Many get their training here, and overstay their visas.
The economic partnership that compiled the Tennessean report is aiming for sensible immigration reform.
It’s easy to blame immigrants, or something else, for one’s hard times.
It’s much more difficult to look for one’s own solutions to the hard times.
If you are looking for something to come into YOUR life that will change things for the betterment of you, there are many such vehicles out there. To check out one of the best, message me. You’ll see people from various races, and nearly all backgrounds, who have taken a step to turn their own lives around.
The economy is changing in ways that we can’t revert. One either has to accept that change and ensure that they can have what they want as the economy changes, or they can blame various people and institutions for their hardship.
If one thinks about it, one can only hope we all choose to accept and ensure. The next time you are working with, or being serviced by, someone who may not look or talk the way you do, know that the person is contributing greatly to the economy, and to the well-being of all of us.
Peter

HOPE SHOULD NOT BE SCARCE

#hope #NewEconomy #manufacturing
It’s been said that where there’s life, there’s hope.
We can debate whether that idea holds true in a medical sense, but let’s look at it from a societal sense.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist John Brummett tackled this idea, in connection with Great Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, in a June 28, 2016, column.
He talks about those who appeal to those who’ve been aggrieved by the new economy.
From the end of World War II through the mid-2000s, America saw, mostly, great prosperity.
Most everyone, from factory worker to CEO, benefited. America made things and shipped them worldwide. Now, we don’t make as many things here as we used to, though reports indicate that manufacturing is coming back.
After that prosperous period came the gradual downsizing and exporting of manufacturing. Then, financial collapse came around 2008. To this day, many have never recovered. Therefore, they have lost hope and are using immigrants and others not like them as scapegoats for their predicament.
“Retrenchment, nativism, nationalism, isolationism, exclusion and reactionary politics – history tells us those tempting and emotional reactions not only don’t work, but prove corrosive and dangerous,“ Brummett writes.
So why should you feel hopeful when you’ve been so wronged?
There are many solutions out there to economic distress. For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You will find lots of hope, optimism and success among average people, who’ve taken a step, and made the effort, to solve problems in their lives.
Certainly, there are naysayers who will, for their own purposes, want you to stay in your angry rut. But strong people will not listen.
Strong people will find what it takes to move out of economic hardship and into prosperity.
It will require work, and perhaps an exit (not a Brexit) from one’s comfort zone. After all, many experts tell us that success was not born in comfort.
How can one pull himself up by the bootstraps if he has no boots?
Sometimes he has to look for boots, or conceive of boots, to achieve boots. Once the boots appear, he can kick off his new life, with a new mind-set and plenty of hope.
“Democracy, a socially conscious capitalism, international alliance, economic evolution and ethnic and racial tolerance – we need to stay on the ship in service to those principles, not jump overboard in fear of them,” Bruummett writes.
The world is not what it was. Every day – every minute – it changes. Things we used to do for ourselves are being done for us. Ideas that were once ideal are becoming obsolete.
Change should not be feared, but embraced. We should approach new things the way a child approaches a wrapped gift at Christmas. Perhaps we can vent our anger by tearing off the paper. But then, it’s time to see the gift for what it is and learn how it will change our, and perhaps others’, lives for the better.
Peter

DON’T LET DREAMS STOP AT CHILDHOOD

#dreams #dreaming #jobs #prosperity
“Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.”
That lyric, from John Cougar Mellencamp’s little ditty, “Jack and Diane,” tells of two Midwestern teens who dream about breaking away from where they are, but come to grips with the fact that they might not.
“Hold on to 16 as long as you can,” the song urges.
If you are old enough to have lived in the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s, you’ve probably heard your parents discourage you from dreaming. If you are too young to remember those years, talk to your parents and grandparents about them.
Ask them how their lack of dreaming turned out for them.
Ask them what they would have done, had they been encouraged, even allowed, to dream.
Folks who lived through those years may be happy. They may even have everything they need to live out the rest of their lives in prosperity. For everyone in that situation, there is at least one, if not more, who is not.
For those who are not, the job they thought was going to be there for as long as they wanted it is probably gone. If they have found another job, it probably doesn’t pay close to what they earned in that lost job.
If you ask them what they have put away for retirement, it probably isn’t nearly enough. If you ask, they will probably tell you that they will have to work until they die.
If you ask them what they are passionate about, they may say “nothing.” Or, they may be passionate about something that isn’t necessarily going to improve their lives.
What are these folks to do,besides complain about their situation?
Are these people bitter about everything? Are they telling their children that the world is doomed? Are they so full of fear and doubt that it consumes them? Do they feel that there is absolutely nothing they can do about the way things are?
It’s certainly easy to feel that way, if you’ve been badly wronged through no fault of your own.
Though it’s easy to feel that way, it’s also easy to tell yourself that you don’t have to feel that way.
There are things in the world that one can do to get himself out of his funk, which may take him out of his comfort zone as well.
Complaining and blaming is easy. Finding solutions may be harder, but certainly not impossible.
There are many ways out there to ease your financial burden, and not have to worry about working a traditional, W-2 job, that you might hate, until you die.
For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You will find an alternative that, for those who really want to better their lives and are willing to make some sacrifices to do so, can potentially change one’s life for the better. And, one can help others do the same, should they choose action over contraction.
The future is bright for those who want to partake of the many blessings out there. If you are in a job you hate, or that isn’t paying you nearly enough for your efforts, look for a Plan B that can eventually get you out of it.
If you’ve lost your job, and don’t see any way of getting another one that will make you a decent living, explore other options. You’d be surprised at what’s out there, if you are willing to look for it.
In Mellencamp’s ditty, the teens seemed resigned to stay in their hometown and live a boring life. There is certainly nothing wrong with staying in your hometown if you like it there, but one does not have to live a boring life. “The thrill of living” comes from within. Build it. Nourish it. Keep it alive and thriving.
This also brings to mind the television ad about the “settlers,” who settle for cable TV instead of the alternative. Don’t settle for anything. There is too much out there to miss by settling.
Peter