Rich or Poor

Don't be afraid of the arguments. Our opinions are meant to clarify matters. I did want to write a post about the poor sometime back, when I noticed homelessness has become a sight in rich California, where my siblings dwell. However, the holidays and the tragic events of the new year has made me forget. Thanks for reminding me. Anyway, the poor has been there since time immemorial. The rich or the wealthy are the counterpart. Your query about the rich getting richer is a fact. That is why Bill Gates keep on giving to charity. The interest alone on his money makes him a millionaire by the day. The poor does get poorer because each day, the preoccupation is to seek food. The poor cannot advance to making his self better. So he gets poorer. But here's a proposition from a thinking and caring young man who, I believe, can change the state of beings if only the billionaires heed his call.

My thoughts on people who are well off shall we say is good for them. Be of service to your fellow man however, dont be selfish. And dont be bragging all the time..it is a sin to do so and it is very repulsive.

From rags to riches, my belief is you need luck.

I'd like to know the answer to these questions too. Some people live very frugally but they seem to be dogged by bad luck every which way they turn.

I always think there is a difference between rich and wealthy, rich are just people who have money either from their family or just got really lucky and then the wealthy are people who actually have worked for their money. It is not the say people who are rich are not wealthy, people who use their wealth to work means they are still earning it instead of just having it be given to them.

Different people live different lifestyles for different reasons.

I wonder the same thing all the time. It's like I have no answer either but see the same thing. My mom used to say when I asked her to borrow money why I didn't save for a "rainy day"? I would tell her if I never got ahead enough to save how could I ?

I have seen it all.

It's definitely the case that money attracts money regardless of whether or not that money was earned through hard work or acquired some other way. A lot of people who have the best of everything don't have much money but tend to be leasing (in the case of cars) or paying for things on credit. That's often the case in the UK. All fur coat and no knickers as the saying goes!

Wealth is all relative.

It does seem that way. I know I've lived paycheck to paycheck my entire working life, without being able to put away for my retirement. All the great ideas about saving for a rainy day, putting away for retirement, only works when you have enough income to do it with. Living paycheck to paycheck doesn't give you that luxury. I've also heard the rags to riches story. A story of perseverance for one's dream and seeing that dream become a reality. What people don't see is all the hard work that went into making that dream a reality. Then there are the rich, those born to wealth and living off the hard work of their predecessors. Life doesn't seem fair, but if you persevere, maybe your dreams will become a reality and you won't be living paycheck to paycheck and your Social Security check won't be less than the poverty level.

It's the luck of the draw, but you have to be clever with your money and making money

It is hard to believe but yes, it is true. I just wish that those reach people helps to those who are needy.

You can spend your whole life working, but if you spend it all, of course you will have nothing. Money is not about how much you make. It is all about what you do with it. If you work hard, live frugally, and save and invest, you will have money. If you spend it all you will have nothing and constantly have to make more of it to live. The rich get richer because they know how to manage their money, invest their money, grow their money, and of course they don't spend all of it. They start and invest in businesses which grows their money even more. The poor get poorer because they generally will spend every dime they make. They pay little attention to growth, investment, saving, and many rely more heavily on the government than gainful employment, which is recipe for disaster. Rich people also tend to use debt as leverage while poor people tend to use debt as a means to fill the void between what they have and what they want/need. So even in that sense the poor get poorer because all they tend to do is dig deeper holes... And again make little effort to realize that, let alone explore all of the many ways they can make a change toward a more positive financial direction. As for seeing SOME people who are living the high life having done nothing to earn it, many of those people inherited their money or just got lucky. BUT, the good life you think they have is not usually sustainable as is the case with MOST rich people who earn their wealth. These people who got their money from nothing will usually blow through it very fast and eventually will be broke or massively in debt. You see this story played out often in lottery winner disaster stories. You can hand someone millions of dollars and IF they do not know about money, it will not make them rich forever. It will only make them rich for a little while. If a rich man were to win a multi-million dollar lottery he would more likely just become more rich AND would keep it, AND would turn it into even more for all of the reasons I stated above.

The issue is not about earning a paycheck. It is about earning a paycheck then make sure it is not drained out like water. Otherwise such a person can become poor even if they get a billion dollars. They would spend it as soon as they get it. Then they would be left with nothing.