Discussion

When I came to the United State, everything was shoking. The most shocking things was that people work harder than people of my origin land, Iran.
I noticed that my sister and her hausbands trying to work harder to buy a new car. while I was going to college to study, my sister and her hausband were trying to make more money. They had to support their family and their lack fo English language was a big problem. They couldn't attend any classes because of the lack of time and their belief that if the merchandise is the good bargain it will sell it, itself.!!!!!
They belief kept them behind, they see other people moved on and they are struggling. They thought and belief remaind with them while world changed with computer and cell phones.
They kept their head above the water and were happy. I was told multiple times, people who came with money to this land are successful. You are nobody, if you came with nothing.
There were never any hope of better life, there was no dream.

There are investments for the rich and investments for the middle class. It is funny that investments for the middle class seem to put more money in the hands of the rich. Two examples would be a middle class individual who draws 3.5% interest in a bank, or the guy who has his money invested in the stock market.
PS. Under the title "Who Took My Money" you left out the word "at." Thank you for all you are doing. You have opened my eyes to a world I never could have dream existed.

Thanks Robert for this great chapter , i totally agree with you that there is a conspiracy. Financial education should definately be introduced in the school ssystem. But then again if there are no poor people and everyone is rich then were would the poor customers come from to make us rich? What iam trying to say is someone has to be poor so that there can be rich people , otherwise if we are all rich then who will make the other person rich? I hope iam making myself clear what iam trying to say!!

I think time is a big one, and deserves more consideration than another item on the list. When you stop and think about it, we spend half if not more of our waking hours working for money, doing something that we don't necessarily enjoy doing. That's half our life, essentially. And even if the job is somewhat interesting and involves some degree of technical expertise, it amounts of repetition to some degree. The term "human servo-mechanism" comes to mind. This ties back into the point about knowledge being the thing that makes money. Even with employees who have to put in so much time to make money, it is easy to see how the amount of knowledge they have yields a better wage, but it is still based on time, your life time. That we think in terms of a better wage shows how we think small and limit ourselves by time, but the fact is a good idea can make lots of money for a long time to come. To take that even a step further, it really means that ultimately we are only limited by our mind rather than the amount of money we have, but we probably can't even imagine that. It doesn't take a lot of intelligence either, after all are the rich the most intelligent people in the world? We'd probably agree that there are plenty of better thinkers, but apparently they just don't think about money.

nessiemupfeki, the words rich and poor may lose meaning if everybody is wealthy, but that certainly doesn't mean everybody couldn't live and enjoy their life. The only way that would be a problem is if the rich derived some kind of satisfaction from having more than someone else, but if you're enjoying your life without having to spend so much of your time to make enough money to just survive, if there is freedom then there's no reason why that should be a problem. Hopefully human beings will get there some day.

This actually relates to the point about the love of money being the root of all evil. Obviously the point of this quote is greed is evil, but while we're on the subject I thought a little bit more about that and it occurs to me it actually reflects the biblical idea of idolatry. If you love money as a static thing, then that's an idol for you. But of course an idol is just an inanimate object, so it is actually not a very intelligent view, morality aside. But where it gets interesting for me is this idea about knowledge and money, and love of knowledge is certainly not wrong, and it is a more intelligent view. I think the love of money can lead to laziness, thinking having a lot of it will just allow you to do nothing, when the love of knowledge can allow you to work less and not so hard by using your mind.

To clarify on that last point, having a lot doesn't improve your mind, so while you can do a lot because you have a lot of spare time from not having to work and money to do it with, it still doesn't improve your mind. (for one thing, you still would only know how to spend rather than make money - maybe thinking you don't need to be concerned about making money anymore because you're 'set') But if you have knowledge, you can figure out how to make money and still enjoy yourself. And if you do run out of money you can make it again, which involves work like everything just smarter but not harder. That doesn't happen with a lucky break that puts a lot of money in your lap like winning the lottery, though. All things being equal, why not have the knowledge also rather than be rich but ignorant?

You've mentioned 'Health' before but I think it's worth including again - the fact that 'universal healthcare for all' is outside the ability of any country to provide for ALL its population.

Unless you are RICH, here in the UK it's not only a 'postcode lottery' regarding healthcare (ie where you live having an bearing on what you get) but also perceived that old people are less likely to get 'proper' healthcare compared with younger people.

Regardless of age or geography, WEALTH is the greatest assurance of proper HEALTHCARE - you'll get it if you can afford to buy it.

The only other reality I can think of that I have no control over cost if health/medical care. I shop around for the cheapest care even if it might not be the best. I have no control over how much the employer takes out of my paycheck or my deductible for the year. Why are medical costs soooooo high. I'm sure the rich are involved somehow. What if we just wipe out all the global debt, start over and go back to real money? (gold/Silver). Is that even possible? Is it even possible to start from scratch?

Nobody is interested to open our minds in order to become rich, nor our parentes because they think in the same way , nor the goverment because it is buildt by political employees looking for a bone, nor our friends because they were educated in the same way. so where is the exit?
I´ve got a postgraduated degree and still struggling to get better life without real results. Until a rich person( Robert ) gived me a gift "The finantial knowledge".
I think, to me is a little late to blend two main ingredients to get a better life . "Time" and "finantial knowledge". How someone around me with a middle/poor class mind, could teach me to be rich if the rich´s knowledge were so far from us?.
Even someone had taugh me something about wealthness, my sourround had attracted me to it . Education is culture , culture is Behavior, behavior is in our minds. Now a know I have a big nature gift. My mind