The world is full of copy cats each one of them trying to become a millionaire, and if they do thinking that they have discovered something special about themselves that makes them in some way superior.
In an earlier blog, I wrote of the weakness in the ideas about the law of attraction as put forward in book written by several authors and entitled The Secret. Obviously, publishing is one of the easiest ways to become rich. One of my former bosses used to remark that the Catholic Church became wealthy from its publications, and he is right.
In an earlier blog, I wrote of the weakness in the ideas about the law of attraction as put forward in book written by several authors and entitled The Secret. Obviously, publishing is one of the easiest ways to become rich. One of my former bosses used to remark that the Catholic Church became wealthy from its publications, and he is right.
At the 2007 book fair in London, England, I met a surprisingly shy publisher by the name of Matthias Schmeltz, who wants to be known as the millionaire maker. Now if you want to make him a millionaire, you would fail because he is probably already a millionaire, and he proclaims to have the secret to making millions, becoming rich beyond your imaginings.
Researching successful ways to making money
If you want to make loads of money, I am the one to ask, and if you do it within a reasonable period, at least, I will give you the secrets I have learned for free. These secrets I could put right now into this blog, but I prefer to spin my pearls out over time. Let me say that the rules for making money and profit have to do with the laws of association and not with the emphermeral laws of attraction as expoused so vaguely in The Secret.
Just email me at pennydrop@wuhlax.co.uk with your request, and I will share my secrets to how you can also become a successful millionaire plus.
What is wealth?
As a reader of economics, I was taught that there is a wealth effect within an economy which helps it grow. The wealth effect acted to spur consumption by whoever thought they were wealthy, and this had the ultimate effect of growing an economy through effective demand.
What happened was that the 'weathier' person borrowed to buy things and the money that was spent went on through the multiplier income effect to grow the economy. We read that most of the wealth in an economy is in the hands of a few people, or at least is not in the hands of the vast majority.
This means that these wealthy people can help an economy to grow if they spend their money on currently produced consumer goods. Problem is that there is a limit or saturation point at which even a rich man refuses to spend more money on specific articles of current manufacture. There is a tendency of rich people to spend their money on things that are not currently produced. This means that the wealthy do not really help the economy to grow very much, or at least less than if the riches were more widely distributed. Yes, but there are catches.
The catches have to do with prices and the locations where you consume the things you buy, and whether what you buy is produced now or much earlier in time, and whether you can take the thing you buy whereever you want to take it.
If people from Mexico keep coming into the United States, this is a great thing for American economic growth, because the statistics will show that more is being produced and more is being consumed. This is how America is presently growing. While the rest of the American economy may be shrinking, the influx of Mexican tourists is booming. America, the richest country in the world is having a tourist boom serviced by Mexican visitors. It may even be good for Mexican growth, but as we all know there are economic catches.
The Glitches of Richs
One important glitch of the rich is that you cannot take what you want to consume with you. What this means is that all you really do is raise the price of the thing that you wish to buy and this in turn means that you save the thing in the place where to you bought it. This is particularly the case with buildings. You cannot take them with you. You are rich beyond your imaginings, but your houses and your hotels remain where they are.
I have an admiration for the rich people because they do so much good for the economy in terms of preserving the past. Rather than mulch up history and vanillaize it, the rich are able to preserve it for future generations by putting the price of past objects beyond the reach of those that you destroy them. In my opinion most of the past, not all, is worth preserving, and it is the rich that largely perform this function. Much of the wealth of the rich is in objects that were created in the past. This is a wonderful thing.
Forest preservation as a use of wealth
What I am not happy with is economic growth by destruction of the past as it is accrued in the form of old trees and forests. If I had my way, I would ask all the wealthy people to buy a forest and preserve it for the future. This is no idle comment.
I think an older tree is worth a million dollars, but greatly undervalued. This is where the economics of value is not serving us very well. It is because the wealthy are not buying into the forests that need to be preserved. One way to encourage preservation of the forests would be to have no inheritance tax on forest preserves that were dedicated to the nation.
In fact, if a farmer were to assign part of his property to the planting of forests, the farm should receive a comparable reduction in inheritance tax.
My idea would be that forests could be owned, but like religions be free of tax. The forests could be developed along guidelines that preserved them for the nation so that they could:
- be used to encourage an out-of-doors lifestyle that did not destroy the natural beauty of the woodlands,
- be widely available in every form of neighbourhood urban or rural so that getting to a preserved forest could be walkable or a bike ride for many people,
- be a part of all urban and rural development with trees preserved within neighbourhoods reflecting the attitude of respect for nature rather than the dominanc eof nature,
- be a part of a community reward system, so that those who preserved forest to be shared by the community would be honoured with a community award that could be aggregated to a provincial and ultimately a national award, and that complete exemption from taxes be awarded to the individual or corporation that won the national annual forest preservation award.
The above is only a start of my ideas on the economics and policy opportunities of how to handle wealth in a new capitalism that preserves as well as creates. For capitalism to preserve it needs tax incentives which the community can award. By tying up capital in forests, we would help preserve our trees while giving the wealthy an opportunity to consume their wealth in a highly economically productive and socially productive way. As a wealthy person, it would be an honour to have a forest preserved in one's name that would last, and last, and last generation over generation.