The big "job" scam

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While I tend to agree with most of this & I'm familiar with fractional reserve banking, it is still possible to get ahead financially. People do it every day. I have friends that earn multiple six figures per year and live modest lifestyles, so they'll likely retire quite wealthy. They did not come from money. They've simply "made it."

I like a quote from one of my friends who once told me "People don't make their money from their jobs." As simple a statement as that is, it was an eye opener for me and I had a bit of an "ah-ha!" moment. It's all about small business (entrepreneurship), disciplined saving, and wise investing. Getting ahead financially, even becoming relatively wealthy, is entirely possible. It just requires disciplined hard work, dedication, perhaps a good idea etc. I have an education and good ideas, but even without those things I know guys who do hard simple work and earn six figure incomes. It's entirely possible to get ahead of inflation if you play your cards right.

But I do tend to agree that for most people the system is designed to keep people as debt & wage slaves.

If a relatively small percentage doing this is ok with you, then all is well.
I personally think it is unacceptable.
The system is designed with unsustainability built into it.

I don't have to be ok with it for it to be what it is.

The simple fact of the matter is that there is, never has been, and never will be any such thing as equality.

There will be rich & poor, rulers & the ruled, masters & slaves etc just as there always has been.

Wealthy people cannot exist without many relatively poor people to compare their relative wealth to.

Whether you think it's unacceptable or not, or whether I think it's unacceptable or not, the fact remains that it is what it is and either you figure out how to get ahead, or you don't and live a life of less abundance. I say less vs. poverty because even the poorest people where I live live a better quality of life than those in 3rd world countries without access to clean water, food, clothing, shelter and so on.

Yes, the system is designed for the vast majority to be poor. And yes, fractional reserve banking is unsustainable. But there is still opportunity for almost anyone to rise above all of that and become financially well off.

I'm trying to be a real successful app developer because of this, I've been deprived of sleep for the past 3 days trying to read Sams's iOS 6 development in 24 hour books (more like 24 months) I ain't even at the 100th page and this doesn't mention the fact I have to look at some APIs and Objective-C focused books

Also you shouldn't just work hard but work smart

Absolutely. Working smart is where the money's at.

I intend to work hard by day (and smart; construction) & then use my earnings to invest wisely and grow my wealth. Eventually I'll transition into doing more and more of my own contracting, then on and up with bigger and better projects and higher profits.

The freedom of "wealth" is that you don't have to get up and do anything you don't want to do. Every need can be paid for because your money "works" for you...making you more money.

If you put $1,000,000 (USD) into most bank accounts, you'd get enough interest to be able to provide all you need if you don't mind living on a modest budget. Higher rates of return or more money to earn interest only makes it easier.

Short of losing your "capital" for investing, you don't have to worry about how anything you need will be provided so long as someone will give it to you for a sum of money.

Wealth doesn?t do anything for you, you do stuff with wealth.

I have money enough, more than I need. But it doesn?t do anything for me, unless I make it to do stuff for me. I don?t get my pleasure and enjoyment in life of not working or of things that are buyable, minus some food and some culture. I don?t either get any inner value from the imagined qualitative difference that wealth and position bring. In that "position" the possessed wealth (junk and so on) needs to be not available for others but still made seen for the others, for it is the self-importance generated by that exclusion that matters. You are holding something that others are not able to hold. To have importance - to be the chosen - to be the one that sees - you have to exclude others but to both make this exclusion and live it in visibility of others.

My enjoyment, my heaven on earth, is in my head. I feel tremendously blessed in life. I get my pleasure and enjoyment in life from doing something that I feel. Thus I dedicate my life to those things that bring me pleasure, enjoyment and meaning, and in loving acts benefit others. You see value in things wealth bring, I don?t, even if I?d have the opportunity to taste them. People are different.

In my early adulthood I thought similarly that not working would be the optimal outcome and thus I tried it. I lived couple years with savings doing nothing but what I wanted. Guess what? That life was f*ing boring. Doing whatever you want and living to make your will every day was seen pretty fast and it lost its glow surprisingly soon like a mirage after entering it. I enjoy my work tremendously and I see and feel the societal meaning it has. Most of my interests in life are completely free of charge and bring me enormously pleasure ? so does doing stuff, like repairing things, carrying wood, picking berries, making food and so on.

The saddest thing in my opinion is that many use their only life in only trying to ?make it?, whether money or f/name wise. People are just focusing on getting to that amount of nulls on a bank account you mentioned, but the thing is they might never even get to ?enjoy? that money, for even when they finally have it in their hands, something is still lacking. You never made it there, if you weren?t there to begin with. My enjoyment and wonderous excitement of life and the feeling of satisfaction has been pretty stable all my life and it hasn?t in any way followed my bank account, but rather hanged around me wherever I went.

^ Beautiful.

I was speaking in terms of being forced to "work" for daily survival.

Wealth means you don't have to be a "wage slave."

I can't speak for VisInsita, but my interpretation is that if you go about your daily life feeling fulfilled in the richness of the people, things, experiences and so forth that you have already - then you'll simply be "rich," as a state of being. With such a perspective on life, you won't want for material things and won't waste your earnings on buying them, and so monetary wealth will accumulate and you won't have to work for survival for very long. Soon you'd have enough money not to be obligated to work, but you'd likely choose to still work as s/he does because it's truly not about the money, but rather about enjoying the process and the journey - as it always was before you accumulated any monetary wealth of your own.

I say this from my perspective of having an income that's fluctuated wildly over the years. I once earned approx $1000/week take home at a part time job. Several years after that I was lucky to make $150/month. Fast forward another couple of years and I've had months where I've out-earned my previous $1000/week (albeit with more than twice as many hours of work) and have accumulated some savings. Even with some savings now, I don't spend much & I don't deprive myself of things either. There just aren't material things that I want or value. I have bigger financial goals than buying things. I'll continue to save and invest and eventually invest in launching a small business in stages, then grow it to be a larger business etc. Yet whether I have very little coming in, or a lot, the things I enjoy will likely remain the same and I'll spend what time I can on doing them - and they don't cost very much money in the grand scheme of life. Had I not been able to adopt this attitude towards enjoying mostly non-material things in daily life, I may still be as broke as I used to be w/o much savings nor income. But since I've made the mental shift to being fulfilled in life by things that don't really cost money, I'm happier, healthier, and wealthier for it - and more money will likely come my way. I won't be a wage slave forever and will eventually live a life of relative comfort and security. But if I focused solely on making money for the sake of acquiring material possessions, I'd likely always be wanting for something and never feel fulfilled. It's so much nicer just Being in a state of fulfillment that makes you feel wealthy in the sense that you have all that you want or need vs. constantly striving for more for more's sake and never being happy for it.

What I wrote I meant exactly in those terms you refer as ?wage slavery?.