You're off about going near the oil fields…they pay three times, for starting, than I can. It's like parking next to Death Star.
Techguy,
What great advice and learnings you provide. Thank you for the rich detail; I would advise anyone starting a business to follow along and not skip a step. Adam and I have learned most of the things you write of, as experience is a great teacher, but the tuition is ridiculous.
I also sympathize with your decision to exit the arena, because, as a small businessman, I feel like my various governments (state, local & fed) consider me to be a source of nutrition and nothing more. Well, perhaps an annoyance, should I ask for any assistance or remedy from them.
And every year the layers of demands just climb and climb, more fees and taxes and regulations, most of which defy any logical analysis or common sense. They simply mount, because that’s how a bureaucrat justifies their existence – they do more.
In the meantime, I have not yet received my final Obamacare bill but have been told to expect at least a 30% increase for my family of five this year. That will place our insurance costs at well over $20,000 for a healthy crew, which makes no sense whatsoever.
It’s like sending a kid to college every year for the rest of time…
This income transfer was done by the D.C. crowd at the request of the insurance industry, which will see more than a trillion new dollars flow through their fingers each year, skimming merrily as it does, while zero incremental health outcomes result.
It’s just a massive transfer, and I am in the unfortunate crowd that has been tagged to pay for it all.
And this is just one of the new insults this year.
And so more and more people simply give up, not because they lack gumption, but because it is the logical thing to do. People respond to incentives, and if you make it easier to not work than to work, then we’ll not work.
More to the point, if you make it almost literally impossible to work, then businesses won’t opened and people won’t be hired and work won’t be done.
From my vantage point, this is the direction we are headed, and I really don’t have the first indication that any government officials have a clue about any of this.
Chris wrote:
"In the meantime, I have not yet received my final Obamacare bill but have been told to expect at least a 30% increase for my family of five this year. That will place our insurance costs at well over $20,000 for a healthy crew, which makes no sense whatsoever."
My insurance premiums for 2013 are just a tad less than double of my 2012 premiums, and I am healthly. The issue I have with Obamacare, is that your not really buying health insurance, its a tax. As soon as your medical costs exceed the deductible and premiums, the health insurance providers will raise your premiums to match your medical costs. I am sure you've read about all of the people with pre-existing conditions see there premiums go form a few hundreds per month to tens of thosands per month which matched their medical costs. While Obamacare prevents providers from dumping patients, there is nothing in Obamacare that prevents insurance providers to raise your premiums to match your medical costs.
Even the ACA subsidies are a joke, since the subsidized plans still have the $6K deductible. If a poor person can't pay the prenimum, there is no way for them to pay the deductable either. In my opinion, ACA is engineered to fail so the gov't can switch to a single payer system. The single payer system would tighten the grip of the federal gov't as they can choose who gets health insurances (those that vote for incumbents) and those who get denied (Libertarians, Tea party). Few people will be willing to buck the power of the federal gov't after they control the healthcare system.
I am hoping that medical concierges become easily accessible in the next year or two so I can dump health insurance. The only reason why I continue to pay for health insurance is that I think unless you have medical insurance (errr tax), hospitals and doctors wil likely turn you away, even if you willing to pay out of pocket. I have read news articles about hospitals and medical offices turning away patients because of lack of insurance.
"And so more and more people simply give up, not because they lack gumption, but because it is the logical thing to do. People respond to incentives and if you make it easier to not work than to work, then we’ll not work. More to the point, if you make it almost literally impossible to work, then businesses won’t opened and people won’t be hired and work won’t be done."
Yup, this is why I am dropping out. I am also worried that dollar is going to be massively devalued in the not too distant future. I am doing something simular to you, by converting my dollar wealth in resources to become self-reliant. The risks for remaining in the dollar and continuing to accumlate savings now outweigh the risks of not converting my savings into tangible assets. I am putting down my laptop and picking up a hammer to become self reliant.
BTW: See a gold company (I think Lear capital) offering DVD copies of your crash course program. It would be interesting if you could get shown on PBS.
Chris wrote:
And so more and more people simply give up, not because they lack gumption, but because it is the logical thing to do. People respond to incentives and if you make it easier to not work than to work, then we’ll not work.
More to the point, if you make it almost literally impossible to work, then businesses won’t opened and people won’t be hired and work won’t be done.
From my vantage point this is the direction we are headed and I really don’t have the first indication that any government officials have a clue about any of this.x:
I wish I could find a children's story I used to read my son when he was younger, from a collection of "Silly Stories". I think it was called "The Sensible Tax". It was all about a country or kingdom whose treasury went bare, and so they had to think of some new kind of tax to fill up the treasury again. But everything they could think of had already been taxed! So one of the ruling class came up with the idea of a "Sensible Tax" that would allow them to tax ANYTHING sensible that their very responsible, sensible countrymen did. They knew they'd fill the treasury up again in no time.
Pretty soon, people were getting taxed for going to work to make a living, taxed for opening umbrellas to keep dry when it rained, and taxed for eating healthy meals. Until one day, someone got wise and did the exact OPPOSITE of what was sensible. And they did not get taxed. So pretty soon others caught on: people were wearing PJs all day long, skipping work and playing all day, eating ice cream for dinner, and closing their umbrellas when it rained. Before you knew it, the incoming tax revenue slowed to a dribble. The moral of the story -whether spoken or not- "people respond to incentives"!
TechGuy’s list, is excellent. I will add one comment. TechGuy actually alluded to this when he said avoid all overhead, but I will say it directly. When starting a new business try as hard as you can not to go into debt: either by borrowing money, or by signing long term leases or purchase agreements. I cannot emphasis it enough. Do not go into debt.
I have worked with a number of start-up businesses over the years. One of the most difficult things to watch was the person with a great idea who borrowed a large sum of money to “get going.” More often than not the cost of the debt service was the thing that choked the business before it had a chance to take off. Start small. Try to pay as you go. This is easier if you do not yet have commitments like a family, mortgage, student loans, car payments, etc. I must admit that I began my business after my wife left her profession to be at home with our then three children. We had all of the above debts. We made it, but not without some great difficulty and with a huge amount of grace and grit on the part of my spouse. Having an understanding and supportive life partner also goes a long way in helping you get on your feet.
Wildlife Tracker’s posts are also excellent. I have five children ages twenty-one to thirty-three. I watch them and their friends trying to make lives for themselves. It is extremely difficult. We baby boomers have made a complete wreck of the economy and our children and grandchildren are being devastated by what we created. My oldest is an attorney married to an engineer. They have very good positions. It takes all of their income to pay student loans and the mortgage on a modest but ridiculously priced Boston suburb house. My other four, although working, are not at all settled in anything I would call a career or life track position.
Thirty-five years ago my wife and I started out looking up at our feet. We owned our clothes, two decrepit cars, my student loans and our college degrees. At that time it was enough. We could find cheap safe rental housing. Food, gas, utilities were manageable. Health insurance was inexpensive and there was employment available. Not so anymore. Except for a few entry positions in the professions, a starting position no longer pays enough for a person to cover their expenses.
Wildlife Tracker, I urge you to stick with us and give us your thoughts and opinions. Invite your friends. We desperately need new ideas and ways of looking at things. I don’t think the answers for tomorrow are going to come from the folks my age and older. We created the mess and our way of looking at things will not result in necessary change.
I'm a millennial too, 29 years old, and I've enjoyed this site for many years. (There must be a bunch of us around here…maybe in the woodwork not posting so often, like myself.)
I'm fortunate to have a relatively stable job with benefits, and this article and others highlight the necessity to branch out and have reality-based expectations. On that note, and regarding my generation there's an entertaining article on a website I discovered a few days ago that I think resonates with a truth (may be a bit exaggerated - still entertaining)
http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-unhappy.html
A key takeaway, "Happiness = Reality - Expectations", reminds me how lucky I was to encounter Chris's "Crash Course" early, around 2008 or 2009, when I was graduating college. (I think it was the first significant "red pill" experience of mine that helped temper a more naive optimism.) The material tempered my expectations and reinforced that today's outcomes are a blend of personal circumstances and many of the systemic situations PeakProsperity discusses.
Back when I was a kid, I had a shelf of soccer trophies, mostly for "participation" – it's hard to imagine that had a salutary effect on my expectations for the world :) But, each generation does have its own issues and to some extent we all inherit a "crap sandwich" in various ways.
(BTW, in the spirit of that Generation Y article the username I have doesn't speak to a sort of "genius" self-image…I may change it but it's from a Modest Mouse song and I found it funny in ironic ways…)
In terms of adaptive responses, I like Nicole Foss's admonition to "be worth more to your employer than he is paying you".
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/how-to-build-a-lifeboat/
Of course jobs in medium and large institutions may not be permanent so a priority is to make myself useful to people around me, and one of the most intriguing ways I've seen (and want to try in my community) that's both charmingly small-scale and relatively systematic is asset mapping. Donnie Maclurcan has a great primer on it here (and it certainly works sans the Occupy tie-in):
http://postgrowth.org/asset-mapping-occupy/
I wonder if others here have tried asset mapping? If so, I wonder what success they've had and the extent that it might satisfy some needs otherwise covered by traditional employment?
Khannea wrote "To make more money with "a business" than my N disability I'd have to make about 2N worth of money since I'd lose 0.3N worth of subsidies on top of my disability and a third in taxes. In other words, completely impossible."
This is the socialist welfare trap that so many Europeans find themselves in today. For one reason or another they wind up on welfare. After a while they realize that any attempt on their part to go back to work is penalized by the government. To the point that many of them just give up and settle for a life of poverty.
Of course, the money to support the welfare recipients has to be extracted (taxed) from those who are gainfully employed or are generating employment by operating a business. This is such a huge disincentive to would-be entrepreneurs that small business creation is being strangled at birth.
Clearly, these two effects are destroying any possibility for Europe to work its way back to prosperity.
The best thing any government can do to increase employment is simply get the hell out of the way.
"The best thing any government can do to increase employment is simply get the hell out of the way. "I vehemently insist you clarify what that means. Because if you mean that it should imply that governments do NOT generate my current disability levels by means of taxation and redistribution it pretty much means me being exposed to likelyhood of death.
I am keenly interested in learning if you advocate (!!) a form of attrition where the market should take over in terms of supply & demand mechanics and welfare/disability should be reduced. But if you are advocating that, given current conditions, you are advocating (in my case) policies where people literally die.
After rent, expenses my food budget is 40 euro a week. That's not enough. Conversely if you advocate the state gives me a lower monthly stipend it immediately means several hundred thousand people in the Netherlands go hungry.
We can argue that the state deceitfully generated means to make itself indispensible, sure. But fact remains that for a sizeable part of the electorate yes redistribution is essential for survival.
So once you argue alternatives rule 1 is to come up with alternatives that do not murder by proxy, To not do so, is criminal. You have to take into account the mess we created. If you don't you risk severe societal breakage.
And continues to burn the remaining economic oxygen, how do you justify your take - at the expense of others. When those who pay in, and must deny their own to offer up their tribute to others…strangers like you, who first object and finally become unable to 'pay in', well…do you see how this ends? Of course you do, but then misery loves company or so they say. Not to worry, we'll all be relatively equal soon enough. In 1945 America had 42 workers for every retiree. Now, we have 2.5 and excluding parasitic government "workers", we're at 1.6. Let that sink in for a moment. 1.6 needy relying on me. I'm not that strong, it's a load beyond my ability. Doom's-a-comin', no doubt about it.
That said, legitimate claims for injury, disability, aid…whatever, unfortunately, will be first diluted and finally ejected from every economic model. Plan and prepare, complain if you must but just remember it won't help and nobody will care. Someone here at PP will sandbag me for these comments, just as they'll gaslight you about their concern for you (don't waste time waiting for their check). Do what you can, plan and prepare.
I know it sucks.
Khannea,
In your first post (the one I responded to) you very succinctly identify the government-created barriers which prevent you from either obtaining a job or starting a business which makes financial sense. I agreed with your analysis and suggested that the root cause of your problem is excessive government interference in the free market which destroys the incentive of you and other would-be entrepreneurs to start a small business or even take a low paying job.
A society which has a rich, vibrant economy with many small businesses, competing with each other for the available workers, will automatically raise living standards for everybody and practically eliminate unemployment. Such a prosperous society will have the means and the will to take care of its members who are disadvantaged or disabled.
I most certainly do not advocate that people in your situation, who are genuinely unable to work, should be sentenced to hunger or death. Such a situation should be unthinkable in any modern country - especially a prosperous nation with a healthy economy.
However, when a nation (or more properly stated its government) creates an impenetrable mass of what amount to anti-business laws and regulations it stifles enterprise and innovation. It creates, as you said, “a considerable disincentive” to the generation of wealth by the fundamental process of human beings adding value to raw material by their creativity and labour.
I don't think that storming the barricades and killing the rich is a solution. If all the rich and productive members of the population are killed there will be nobody left to fund the redistribution. Because, clearly, some form of redistribution is essential – I just don't think it should be at gun-point.
The real solution, and the one I advocate most strongly, is for your government, my government, any government, to be told by the populace that its efforts to create jobs by manipulating interest rates, the money supply and increasing taxation are futile and ultimately destructive of the very jobs they seek to create. The best government is a tiny government. One that is respectful of the liberty of its people and does not hinder their efforts to better their lot and take care of those who cannot take care of themselves.
A recent article on this site "The Government Comes Up With The Money" describes perfectly how an overblown welfare state eventually destroys the economy and ultimately the ability of the state to fund the welfare system itself.
We all need to tell our respective governments in no uncertain terms that we are not the helpless sheeple they assume us to be. We are perfectly capable of creating wealth for everyone, if only they will get out of the way and let us get on with it. We cannot ignore “the mess we created” but the ultimate solution is to fix the mess not kill the rich.
I sadly realize that this is no help to you in the short term. But I respectfully suggest that it is the only real solution if you, and I, are to have any hope of a bright and prosperous future.
The era of mass employment is over. Period. The percentage of irreversibly employed will go up every year and the systemic jobs lost will never be replaced, at least not by humans. Somewhere mid century the vast majority of jobs will be gone, and available automated systems will do any job done by a human easier, cheaper, more accurately, safer and better than it can be done by any human.Still societal efficiency and productiveness will increase every year, and as a result profits will only accrue to a small percentage of people who hold rare skills, talents, investments, money or special social consideration (or networks). The vast majority of people will be left in vicious competition, superstitious denial (as you can read from above replies) and irrational veneration of the privileged (as you can see in above replies). The end result will no doubt be a range of conflicts and these conflicts will quickly escalate in bloodshed.
Unthinkable though it may be among the cargo cult worshipers of economical evangelism, we'll see a total reformat of world wide economy in to either a new oligarchic feudalism, or a society kept in a humane dignity by some form of basic income. Capitalism and mass-prosperrity will be long since a memory before 2050.
http://www.scoop.it/t/concentration-of-wealth-existential-risk
[Admin: removed per violation of this site's editorial guidelines]
The oppressor caste are TBTF bankers and politicians. Please don't take any real people with you.
There will be no jobs.
H.Sap. has never been one to allow the grass to grow under his feet.
This video comes road tested by me. If you have an attention span greater than that of a Goldfish (10sec) then I would suggest you watch it. It explains one possible future. A future that I prefer to contemplate.
If one of the fundamental laws of the universe as illuminated by McKenna is that the universe is a Novelty conserving mechanism. Then it would appear that reality is in encouraging us to organize as such so that we are aligning our creative efforts with our outputs (which we are currently not, outdated). So its our organizing efforts that are currently falling short of what reality is requesting from us? Dismantling us on the economic, energy and environmental fronts? So really our ability to continue the human experiment is going to be determined by how successfully we allow reality to shift things. Are our choices really up for consideration?If things are moving this fast and the next iteration will be even faster then eventually won't the pace just be simply to much to keep up with and we'll die of tachycardia, or is this what is meant by evolution? There has to be a linear regulator or otherwise why would we have been created to understand linear models and not exponential ones?
Just some un-organized thoughts your recent post created so I thought I would shoot them back to see if any of this has resonated with you?
Rose
there is no goldfish with a 10second attn span. tday the pond thawed, koi were fed and i caught the eye of many of their kin.
I interpret you to mean that McKenna's observation that change is non-linear and has a doubling time that is getting out of hand means that we will die of heart attack (stress, whatever).My immediate thought was of Jethro Tull's Locomotive Breath. He was right- the children will get off at the station, one by one. And so they are. And he was rong (thats wrong spelt rong), The locomotive won't slow down-it is speeding up. I stay on the train as I find the stress invigorating, and the gyrations of the passengers amusing.
That's me on the cover.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KR2H16Mr5g&feature=player_detailpage
"I vehemently insist you clarify what that means. Because if you mean that it should imply that governments do NOT generate my current disability levels by means of taxation and redistribution it pretty much means me being exposed to likelyhood of death."Most of the money collected in taxation is used to feed the gov't. The more revenue the bigger the gov't grows and the less money ends up helping the poor. Because you are totally reliant on the gov't you are forced to obey and remain submissive to their actions and policy.
"After rent, expenses my food budget is 40 euro a week. That's not enough"
Yup. That is designed to prevent people from ever leaving. Perhaps your not living in a prison cell, yet your prisoned by a system that traps you from a better life. My guess is that if you walked into the offices of the top leave gov't offices you will see luxary goods everywhere with Gilded ceilings. Why is that the those at the top of gov't always seem to maintain an exceptional living standard even when they make grand socialist plans for the needy? You get 40 EUROs to live on, they get chauffeured around in Luxury vehicles and have top chefs prepare their meals. They award Million or Billion Euro contracts to friends and family, while the rest are unable to find a living wage.
"Conversely if you advocate the state gives me a lower monthly stipend it immediately means several hundred thousand people in the Netherlands go hungry. "
No, Its so the majority of people can't find employment instead of remaining utterly dependant on the state for measily handouts. How many non-disabled Dutch can't find jobs because of excessive taxation and regulation that prevents them from getting jobs? More people working, means more revenue which can help those disabled. The more the gov't increases taxation and regulation the less money will be available to help those in need. The jobs that could have employeed many thousands of more Dutch, haven't disappeared, they moved overseas mostly to Asia, as companies are forced to outsource in order to produce good and services needed by society. What is fundementally different in Europe prior to the rise of socialism. Are Europeans dumber, lazy, less able to produce competitve products and services? Europeans produced some of the best products in the World! Fine cars, trains, food, etc. People want to buy quality EU goods! Its not that the quality of work Europeans do has declined, its that the gov'ts have tied their hand behind them!
" But fact remains that for a sizeable part of the electorate yes redistribution is essential for survival."
What about those who are not disabled but forced live on wealthfare and take away resources from those that are disabled? If less people are dependant on wealthfare, then there would be more money available for the disabled,
Remember, meglomanics rise from socialism, as the mass murders of the 20th century, Stalin, Hilter, Mal, Mussilini all rose to power under the idea of workers paradise or socialism. Sooner or later the socialism in Europe will fail as nation after nation goes bankrupt. Then, these nations will see another round of charismatic politicans that preach a new era, but demand totalitarian power to bring about a new paradise for the people. EU is already seeing the same social disobedience with frequent riots that happened in Europe in the 1920's. In less than 100 years Europe is about the repeat the same cycle all over again. This time It will not survive a third world war, as WW3 will truely be the war that ends all wars as the newspapers of the WW1 era declared.
Watching the video posted by Arthur (Build a Bridge and Get Over It.) I was encouraged by the brilliantly creative ways engineers and scientists are building robots which enable goods and services to be produced more efficiently and at lower cost.
Cheaper and more abundant goods and services - what's not to like? Luddites in 19th century England fought against the introduction of automated (robotic) textile making machinery. They were afraid of their jobs being replaced by machines. But in reality they were freed up to do other jobs and the textile business boomed.
High unemployment on a national scale isn't caused by automation. It is caused by the inability or reluctance of employers, mostly small businesses, to hire new workers because of either uncertain economic times or excessive government red tape and taxation - which together destroy the ability to make an honest profit.
The central banks create uncertain economic times by manipulating the money supply and interest rates - preventing the market from establishing prices. When the Fed dries up credit, small businesses are put in peril and become very risk adverse. They hoard money rather than spending it on more employees and new machinery (read robots) to increase productivity.
Robots aren't the problem. The 'too big to fail' banks and the government puppets which dance to their tune are the real problem. Our world is being strangled to death by statist politicians trying to control every aspect of our lives and business. They have created an atmosphere of fear which permeates our society from top to bottom. Consumers are afraid to spend, businesses are afraid to hire, we are all waiting with bated breath for the next assault on our liberty or our pocketbook.
What we need are some well programmed robots to replace politicians. Maybe then we might have a small government making logical decisions and free from corruption.
Most high school kids don't have summer jobs because there are no jobs to get. It is very difficult to get experience in anything when no one is hiring and most college educated adults and scrambling for the McDonalds position. Nobody pays to have their lawns mowed or leaves raked. I will agree most are lazy and entitled, but for those who are not there are very few options.
I agree with your description of the current state of affairs, but you cannot blame all this on just one thing. We got here after 30 years of trickle-down economics and corporate fascism. We have large corporations owning all our politicians (federal and state) and writing laws that favor themselves and screw us. And not one of those high-paid CEOs has figured out that by fucking over their workers they are making sure no one can afford to buy their products. Add in the Fed creating money out of thin air to prop up the still-failing banks, and our dollar is worth maybe 5 cents. We have no choice but to buy more of the cheap but poorly made Chinese crap peddled in every store. Yet I can't afford to keep replacing various items that fall apart or stop working (the blouse that loses buttons on the first wearing, the electric can opener that gets wonky after three months, the microwave that turns itself on in the middle of the night, the clock radio that dies after six weeks, the heater that won't work–and the stuff always dies just after the warranty ends or when the store will no longer take it back). My reaction is to stop buying anything new.
There are no jobs because they've been shipped overseas and yet companies continue to get tax credits for doing it. Obamacare makes a good whipping boy, but you need to have a chat with your Republican congressmen who have blocked every attempt to end those tax credits.