“Honey, I saw a great deal with
free money for us?”, I told my wife excitedly a while ago.
“Are you kidding me for free
money these days?”, she replied.
“Oh, yep!”, I showed her
what I saw from an ad. “It said I can
walk away with $30K for agreeing to buy a car of $100K”. I’m so excited and
I continued: “You see, you want to expand
our deck for some time but we haven’t got enough budget for it. Now we will get
the free money to do it!!”
So I went to the dealer, signed the purchasing agreement and then
I asked for a check for the $30K before I was leaving. My plan was sort of
genius, I was talking to myself. As soon as I got the money, I’d postpone the
purchasing agreement till I have the money, while still keeping the $30K for my
home improvement investment first. I felt really great till I got the answer
from the selling manager, “Sir, have you already
paid the car?”
“No. Why should I? I thought
I could get the incentive first before I pay the car!” I relied quite
confidently.
He looked at me like I was coming from the Mar, an extraterrestrial
alien. “Sorry, Sir. If you really don’t
know yet, this is quite a common sense that your incentive must be coming from
your car purchase. Otherwise we would have go bankrupt pretty soon if every car
purchaser could get the incentive without paying! I hope you do understand this!!”
By now, I almost fell off my chair as I must be looked extremely
stupid without knowing this a real common sense. Even a high school student
must know this but not stupid me. Looking around, apparently everyone was trying
very hard to keep their laugh and scoff unnoticeable. My god, what a damn
foolish dull I’m! I cursed myself while walking out of the dealer office.
If I told you this fabricated story just a few weeks ago, I would
have been ridiculed to death I’m sure. No one would ever believe this kind of
unbelievable stupidity could ever happen to anyone with just normal mentality
and reasoning ability. But unfortunately this has just happened, not at our low
class level, but at the top elite level, a rising political star in the
Congress. If you still don’t understand what I mean. Here is the story
occurring to the famous Amazon. It has withdrawn the plan to build up its 2nd
headquarters in New York because it was criticized by the political force lead
by the rising political star for the incentive it will get worth about $3
billion for agreeing to build its 2nd HQ there with an estimated new
revenue income of about $28 billion generated for the city. It is considered
immoral for the big corporate to get incentive of this much. And it is said the
$3 billion could be invested in other areas for the city, like improving the
subway system and other community services. What is more bizarre and
unbelievable is her continuous public claims after successfully driving away
Amazon that “the collapse of the Amazon
deal would free up $3 billion to fix the city’s subways and hire more teachers.”
This is exactly a copycat of my faked car purchase story and I just cannot make
it up. See
here with your own eyes. In other words, she is genuinely believing
that the incentive money offered to Amazon is already available for use before
it is earned yet. No wonder how many bold promises she has made recently as she
indeed thinks there is unlimited money available for the US as US is so rich
and the money can be simply minted at wish. Speechless!!
Apart from laughing to death after seeing this really antic and
freakish saga that I wouldn’t believe at all if not seeing it myself, I’m
becoming really worried now. Not for Amazon of course and not for NY local
residents also as many of them seem to also be sided with AOC on this struggle
after being brainwashed by such politicians. What I become increasingly worried
about is the future of this country. You see, AOC is a rising star and as I
said, she may very well be the future Obama for DEM. Her momentum is very
strong and whatever she says and promotes these days will attract a lot of
followers, especially those young people who are often economically clueless
and may be even more dumb than she is. Think about for a moment what is going
to happen when more and more such kind of clueless politicians sitting in the
Congress and Senate who will decide the future of America?! The future of the
US policies and regulations will be based on the fantasy Utopian ideology that
the money can indeed be created from the thin air without any hard work
involved. The government should support everyone even if they are unwilling to
work and anyone who just wants to come to the US legally or illegally. And evil
entrepreneurs and businessmen must share their wealth in order to fund all the
entitlement programs in the name of supporting the poor and income equality......
These have all sounded like fantasy that wouldn't be real unless pigs could fly, right? But
it is becoming more and more a reality now in the US.
Let me make a bold prediction here. The rising star AOC, if indeed
successful in her political career, will either bring down the whole DEM party
some day due to her more and more freakish ideology, or even worse the whole
country some day to push the US to become Venezuela No 2.
I don’t want to make the impression that I become more and more
political in this blog. Not at all. I really only want to talk about finance
and investment ideas here. But this new development is too important to ignore
as it has also huge implications for our financial future. I’m too little to
make any meaningful changes of course politically but at least I know what I
should do to be prepared for the worst! I always want to structure myself in
such a way that if I’m right, I can win a lot or can help myself to avoid
disaster. But even if I’m wrong, I won’t lose much or may still gain to some
extent. So my advice specific to this worrisome development? Diversify not only
in terms of asset classes or sectors but also internationally if possible. Hold
enough insurance assets like gold and/or silver. Treat them as money for
insurance purpose, not as investment for short term gains. A general advice is
to hold gold/silver at an amount of about 5-10% of your total asset, as such
kind of amount can really have meaningful protection in case the worst comes
true. For myself at least, a well structured cost-effective whole life
insurance that won’t be easily touchable by the government's uncontrollable and
more and more invasive groping hands（咸猪手). Believe me, our life will become
increasingly controlled and meddled by the government, to the extent that is
unthinkable at the moment.
Enjoy
your life as much as you can, grow your wealth as long as you can, and then be
prepared for the worst! This is not an America anymore that promotes freedom
and wealth building via hard work. Rather, it is becoming more and more a
country that encourages laziness and wealth stealing from others with a
government eager to meddle your private life as much as possible. The new wave
of socialism is taking momentum now and will become a norm sooner or later. If
you like this trend, good luck for you and your wealth! If you dislike it as I
do, do something now before it is too late.
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