***OT*** If you're doing mediocre at best now, where is the great prosperity
Maybe I wasn't clear in my previous post, after I do the net worth statement I see, that, in fact I HAVE made enormous progress. Growing up in the high inflation of the sixties and seventies I still have this mind set that I should be making more money every year. But after all, you ought to know, that it is not what you make, its how much you keep. The low inflation environment (be it a local thing) has enabled me to do a lot more with my money without it to eat away at purchasing power. I have a much higher net worth than people who make ten times what I do. I know this because I have friends and family members that ask for my advice on their finances and I get a good look into their lifstyles. In a typical American fashion these people always think that they need to make more money, even when I can show them painless ways to increase their savings and they know that I make considerably less and do more with it. People think that they are living in a high inflation environment because they ramp up their life styles just a little faster than their income....at EVERY level. Just take a look around at your toys, how many phone numbers you have that you didn't have five years ago? They used to build houses with one electric outlet in every room! What does your car have on it that cars ten years ago didn't have.
The only place I see that bucks this trend is in College tuition. What is going on there? I work on tons of marketing publications for Colleges. What I can't figure out is, these guys are fighting over bodies, yet the price keeps going up, way above inflation. Education is becoming one of our biggest exports but the laws of supply and demand aren't working.
Every one of my competitors that has risen their prices has very quietly lowered them a few months later. This is why I don't do it....plus, it would put pressure on the clients that I've done business with for twenty years to find a cheaper supplier. |
