Breaking the Financial Trap: Creating a Secure Retirement (part 2 of 5)
Posted: Tuesday, December 22, 2009
by Lance Walker
SkyVault Multimedia Publishing
Part 2 of 5: A Bold Solution
Sooner or later we're all going to find ourselves face-to-face with the consequences of the financial trap that is being spun around us every day. Like it or not, there are those who will, if they can, keep us in debt for the duration of our lifetimes - and beyond. The sooner we accept this fact, the sooner we can focus on creating the extra income strategy necessary to successfully fight back.
In order to understand the "Millennium System" concept, we must first understand how income is generated. There are basically 4 ways to legally earn money in a capitalism-based economy (not including inheritance or gambling):
1) as an employee,
2) through self-employment,
3) by owning a business, and
4) by investing capital.
Let's take a quick look at each of these.
1) Employee - If you think that working harder for a promotion, or taking on another job, is the solution to your financial worries, then let this be your wakeup call. Unless you are at the very top of the entertainment, athletic, or corporate pyramids, the fact is you will never be able to trade enough hours for dollars to make a real difference in your wealth.
There are two unavoidable negative realities working against every job holder: taxes and the nature of business. As with gravity, you can fight against them for a while, but they will always win out in the end.
Capitalism is a system designed to reward those with capital, and consequently punish those without it. That's why your bank charges you an extra fee for a bounced check; you're punishment for not having enough money is to have more money taken from you.
As an employee, because you don't have much capital, your punishment is you get to pay the highest taxes of anyone in the economy. And there are virtually no tax shelters available for your income. It's like being the fox at a fox hunt; the game is simply not designed for you to win.
The very nature of business works against you for the same reason. For example, even though studies show most Americans would prefer to telecommute at least part of the time, and the environment would certainly benefit from less traffic on the roads, productivity demands and management's need for control will prevent the vast majority of workers from ever discovering the joys of working from home.
Businesses turn a profit by keeping costs lower than revenues - and labor is far and away the largest cost center for most businesses. Therefore, if your primary income is from a job, understand this basic fact of life: a company's ownership will never pay an employee more money than it costs to replace them.
For example: ever heard of age discrimmination? The reason so many employers get away with it is because it's easy to legally justify replacing older, expensive labor with younger, better trained, hungry workers willing to work for less.
(And as for the value of experience, it's actually overrated. Most 10-year employees don't have 10 years of real experience; often what they really have is one year of experience repeated 10 times.)
It's the same with automation - if a computer or robot can learn to do your job faster, better, and cheaper than you do, you'd better face the fact that your days on that job are numbered. It's simple economic wisdom - and it's good business sense if the company wants to stay competitive.
It turns out that your economic progress, and your family's security, is determined much more by how well you use your mind to creatively add value to the marketplace, than by how long and how faithfully you're able to follow other people's directions.
So the moral of the story is this; a job is meant to sustain you while you prepare yourself to become a business owner. It was never designed to make you financially independent, and it never will. The solution? Instead of fighting the system, get financially educated, and get on the winning side!
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Lance T. Walker is a noted author, career coach, e-business consultant, and proud U.S. Air Force veteran. Reach him at http://www.lancetwalker.com. SkyVault Multimedia Publishing provides marketing consulting, web site development, and Internet business services to owners of small and micro sized businesses. Learn to use today's technology to build your financial success at http://www.skyvaultbooks.com .
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