Comments on: Why The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Poorer

By: Calcatraz

Calcatraz — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:55:45 +0000

I think there is definitely something in the “you become what you think about” idea. I always find when I’m focused on something two things happen. 1) I start taking actions which are in-line with that, and 2) I start noticing related opportunities. The challenge I have (and which I’m getting better at) is clarifying what I want to focus on, and keeping that focus. When I do manage to do well at that I always find my results start to fall in-line.

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Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:19:40 +0000

[...] at The Fast Lane – This post says it all. Do you intend to be successful? Then what do you think [...]

By: Al H.

Al H. — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:51:02 +0000

I did this with a guy I worked with. I told him that I had been studying a book on controlling people and I wanted to try something on him. I said I wanted to see if I could control him.

He was standing on my right. I said, I’m going to make you move over to my left, OK? He said; Go ahead and try it. I said: Move over to my left right now! He didn’t move. I then made a half-hearted attempt to grab his arm and move him. He didn’t budge seeing as he was much bigger and stronger than I.

I command you to move over to my left! Still nothing and by now he looked at me like I was crazy.

Then, I said, now I’m going to do what I read in the book. I simply did a 180 degree turn. Now he was on my left with almost no effort. If he tried to go back to the right, I would have turned again. There was nothing he could do, and he knew it!

There is good advice out there.

I enjoy reading motivational materials like some guys like to sit and watch football. To each his own.

Some get rich by scrimping and saving all their lives because they fear poverty. Some develop a rich consciousness and realize that not all that counts can be counted and not all that can be counted, counts. [sign hanging in Einstein's office]

By: Bryce Hogness

Bryce Hogness — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 04:53:39 +0000

Wow. This article does say it all. I watched a film called “The secret” and I strongly urge everyone to watch it. The key to happiness and to life is to not think about what you don’t want. Try to focus on what you want. When you think about what you do not want in life or what is bothering you, you attracting it to you. Hence, the “Law of Attraction”. Great article.

By: Some Copycats Don’t Use Their Brains : How to trace Copycats « Jalaj P. Jha

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:26:37 +0000

[...] struck another thought. From another post by Ashwin, I followed a link to land up on a blog post at thefastlane.info. And I did saw what was anticipated. Though Ashwin Khanna had changed the post title, the similar [...]

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 18:50:01 +0000

My, my.

Gates is self-made in the purest sense of the word. Did his parents own Microsoft? No. He and Paul Allen had a new idea, believed in it, and did something about it. Did Buffett’s parents own Berkshire Hathoway? Did the Trumpster just inherit daddy’s real estate?

Ok, here’s 5 names: Ray Kroc, Col. Harlan Sanders, Larry Ellison, Ross Perot, Sam Walton, Steven Chen, Chad Hurley, David Filo, Jerry Yang, Carlos Slim Helu.

Oh. I guess that’s 10. You want me to dig up more? LOL. If I were to move into the millionaire list rather than billionaires, I expect I could come up with more than that, yes? Or do millionaires count as wealthy?

The simple truth of why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is because of the way they think. It’s not luck, and it’s not economics. Many people have lost it all only to gain it back again. Is that luck? No. It is the mindset of the wealthy. It is the same reason that most multi-millionaire lottery winners are soon broke again. Mindset. The way they think.

You’ve given figures on economics. Yes, of course it is true that the more capital you have control of, the faster your wealth accumulation can become. Duh.

Here’s a question for you — why do you think that inherent wealth is the biggest indicator for future wealth?

Gates’ parents didn’t inject millions of dollars into Microsoft, or hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands. Gates’ parents, nor Paul Allen’s parents, weren’t billionaires. The Donald didn’t recieve a huge cash infusion from Donald Sr. Warren Buffett didn’t use daddy’s money to get into the stock market. What then is the answer?

So if the availability of capital isn’t the reason those people became wealthier than they were, what is it?

BTW, “what you think about” determines your actions, yes? The two are hand-in-hand, so please stop trying to pick. And I will never believe that the ‘means you are born into’ determine your destiny. There are just too many examples of the opposite. (Bill Clinton comes to mind right here)

The facts and the truth say that anyone can be wealthy. It is not determined by whether or not a person is born wealthy, although I grant you that these people could have a head start, simply by learning from wealthy parents. It is not determined by having huge amounts of money to start with, that is obvious with the latest examples of the wealth of the founders of Google, Yahoo, YouTube, etc.

I have to say, Peter, that the more you try to deny the power of the mind, the more you do the opposite.

By: Peter

Peter — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 17:52:10 +0000

OK Steve, you don’t want to open your eyes and see the truth, stick with thinking in the way you are and be completely closed to the fact that your ‘Thought’ theory could be wrong. Science, economics and common sense prove it wrong.

As many of your ‘Guru’ gods that you follow would have done you never named 5 individuals and instead glossed over the question with something from a magazine instead of doing some research for yourself. By this method you also make it very difficult for me to give you a rebuttal and thus prove you wrong again. This is a common tactic used by con-artists and generally manipulative people.

As for your Forbes list. Comments that may appear like that are purely the writers opinion and if researched are found to be incorrect. For example did you know Bill Gates was born into a very wealthy family? Most people believe he was self made. Donald Trump is another who was the son of a very wealthy developer. Warren Buffet was the son of a wealthy business man. The 3 individuals I have listed are all stated as been ‘self made’ on the Forbes list. I have already stated the fact that they were wealthy before they were conceived and this can be research very easily. If you do this research you once again will find that this is also correct and your information is incorrect. The means you are born into is the biggest indicator of future wealth.

In your opening statement of this page you write “You become what you think about.” now you have added in that it’s also the actions that you take. You are just blowing in the wind out there. You don’t even know your own point anymore do you? First it was thoughts, now it thoughts and actions next it will be thoughts, actions and the means (wealth) you are born into. Wouldn’t that be funny then we would be agreeing.

I have tried to share some facts with you and you and failed to give an accurate rebuttal to all of them and have also skipped over the majority of facts that I have giving you about why the rich get rich and the poor get poorer. You choose to be so closed minded to the clear facts, I cannot understand why you would do this, but never the less that is your right. Eventually you will realize that what you have been yelling to the world is incorrect. When this point comes how will you feel and what should you do about all the people you have miss-lead. You should not feel good. Give people facts so they can deal in truth and reality to the best of their knowledge and ability.

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 04:34:26 +0000

Peter, Peter.

That you do or do not have wealth doesn’t matter to me, other than if you do, I’m happy for you. If you weren’t born into it, then you achieved it by hard work and perseverance, which is laudable.

You can believe what you want to believe, you have that privilege, that right. If one belief system doesn’t work for you, try a different one. If what you believe is getting you where you want to be, that’s great.

Oh, by the way–on the Forbes magazine 2007 list of billionaires, 60% (over 550 on a list of 932) made their fortunes from scratch. That means they weren’t born into wealthy families. 45 people that were on the 2006 list aren’t on the 2007 list–meaning that in their cases, the rich didn’t get richer. 178 people are on the list that weren’t there last year. The rich don’t automagically get richer and the poor don’t always get poorer. What you attribute to luck I attribute to thought and action.

There are simply too many examples of people overcoming poverty by no other means than the power of their mind to subscribe to your belief system. Sorry.

Nothing you’ve said refutes the basic premise that people are where they are because of the way they use their minds and the actions they take.

By: Peter

Peter — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 02:23:42 +0000

“I’ve made buttloads of money and had more than one (temporarily) successful businesses. I’ve had more than one job where I made over $100K a year.” this is a quote from Steve. I don’t real understand the reference to ‘more than one business (Temporarily)’ in the above statement you made, I also didn’t think you would want to turn this into a how much you or I have contest because to be quite honest with you I think $100k a year is not that good. A person making a $100K is a person who is at the top level of the poor people (by western standards), they believe they have a lot be really are still a pawn in the bigger picture.
Yes, I do consider the like of Tony Robbins and the other people you mentioned to be con artist. They prey on weak minded people who are not in control of their own psychology and fill them full of miss-information. Tony Robbins was writing books and courses on how to have successful marriage while he was going through a divorce, he has had 2 failed marriages. He also teaches about weight loss while all the time pilling on weight himself. This self help garbage is simply are marketing ploy. If you are too foolish to see this well there is simply no hope for you. It nothing more than another form of televangelism. The only people making money out of self help are the Guru’s that you worship. They have sold millions of courses, so if this stuff really worked wouldn’t we be walking around bumping into billionaires every day? I say this as I am sure that a large majority of the attendees of these courses have that exact goal, yet none of them seem to make it.
My point was to simply make you realize that the notion that your thoughts control your wealth levels is simply not true. I agree that your thoughts are very important for all aspects of your life but to claim that if your thoughts are ‘good’ you will get material gain is ludicrous. I have been involved in money management for many decades and for someone to post on a website that the reason the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is their thoughts is just not true. Economics does not agree with you, neither do the facts.
Just to be clear I never said I believed all that I had achieved was by luck, far from it I think it came from study, patience, good psychology and hard work. The fact is that I was lucky enough to be born in a time and place where opportunities for wealth development were afforded to me is the biggest factor in my success. A peasant child in Africa hardly has the same opportunity, just as I hardly have the same opportunities as say Donald Trump Jr.
Luck plays a part, skill and intelligence plays a part, hard work plays, psychology plays a part but so does the means you were born into. The means you are born into are the most accurate indicator of future wealth. If you honestly believe that the means you were born into isn’t the biggest indicator of future wealth please name 5 billionaires that were not born into either billionaire families or millionaire families?, it cannot be done, every single last one of them was already wealthy before they were even conceived.
Steve you made the statement “I have learned from life, Peter. I’ve learned that when I’ve failed or fallen, it’s been due to my thinking and actions (or lack thereof), not from outside circumstance or luck.” This is generally true but you must have had times when it also wasn’t true. For example if your car breaks down on the way to an important meeting and ends up costing you a contract worth millions is that because of your thinking? I think not, in that case it was luck. On the other hand if you have a bad condition car and it requires a service which you don’t do then it breaks down is that luck? I think not, in that case it would be poor decision making by the owner of the car. Thinking in the correct manner is still very important however my point in this case is once again to show you that luck still plays a part no matter how much you tell yourself its all in your thinking.
In the end Steve I have rebutted every point you have made. I have also written many points down to which you have no answer and simply brush over and start talking about what you want to talk about. The title of these page is ‘Why The Rich Get Richer & The Poor Get Poorer’ I have shown that the biggest factor to this statement is the means you are born into, if you choose to burry your head in the sand and keep worshiping your guru’s by all means go ahead just keep in mind anybody with a reasonable amount of intelligence is listening to you thinking you are very gullible thus the best thing to do and what you should have done is simply not voice your opinion on a topic you really don’t have a clear understanding of. I will be waiting for my list of billionaires.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 22:22:21 +0000

You could develop land for housing estates and lose most of your investment when a housing crunch hits. You could be fabulously wealthy and lose everything in a dot com bomb. You could leverage yourself to the hilt and lose most of it in an economical slump.

You could, on the other hand, take your $10K and start a computer company in your basement. You could take even less and build a data processing company and become a billionaire. You could build a marketing business on a shoestring and generate hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

People don’t get enormously wealthy because they have capital. They build their capital by their actions and decisions and use that capital to multiply (or diminish) their wealth.

There is constant movement between the rich class and the poor class. A poor person doesn’t become rich because of chance, but because of their decisions and actions. A rich person becomes poor because of their decisions and actions.

No more, no less.