Forum Replies Created
- Church building ownership. Clearly the best way to throw other people's money to the wind.
But you can not take it in isolation since most people regard the building as the church, and long for a big new building the same way everyone else wants their local social club to grow and have a big building. Makes you feel good and so it should.However, and forgetting the bad business of owning the church building, your post on money is rather rich coming from a Christian. (pun intended)
Clearly the worst possible concept to come from the Christian ethos and repeated at nauseam by media secular or not, is that "Rich is evil and poor is virtuous". This poisonous concept that has permeated all strata of society is single handedly responsible for the lack of financial progress in almost any person you come in contact with. Rich go to hell. Poor go to paradise. Rich bastards warm up the planet. Poor people are green and lean and mean well.
Ask the following question: "What is OK to earn a year and what is too much"Depending on your audience you will get the $100k average as the ceiling, a few mentions of 200k that check behind them after saying so and several clear statements that anything above 300k is just wrong. No one really needs that… One million? That is plainly obscene.
And you can lay the above culture of mediocrity straight at the foot of the interpreters of the bible, who twist their audience into a schizophrenic spin of "Don't work for the money….yet give me 10% of what you earn"
The winner is of course the one who earns absolutely nothing and get's supported by the rest to do the most important thing of all. Tell the others how they are wasting their time chasing "material things". Stop at once, drop what you are doing and work for the Lord they tell you. Yet if you did so, they will have to sell the building in no time and end up in a paid job for once in order to make ends meet.If it wasn't so seriously bad, it would be a joke.
I love money. I love the freedom it gives, the power to do what you want, the choices it allows you to have. The thrill and the challenge to make more of it. The satisfaction to spend it wisely or otherwise.Churchianity and it's culture of poor is good, rich is bad, should be punished…perhaps with higher taxes to compensate for wasted opportunities, lack of ambition, destruction of plans and careers etcI find it rather funny that grown up people are still 'debating' if network marketing is a pyramid scheem or if it is a scam, or if it is a business.
There is a simple rule you can use and it goes like this.
Does the company SELL products or services?
EVEN IF THEY KEEP REPEATING AT NAUSEAM THIS IS NOT SELLING?
Then it is not a pyramide scheem. Pyramid scheems are like the chain letters and are a system to extract payments for no reason then recieving a bigger payment promise at the end. They are illegal.Do they tell you it is all about signing up, recruitign, never mind the product, sign up sign up?
Then it is network marketing and the trainer is an idiot.Now reflect for a moment. We have just worked out in a few seconds that all this ventures are NETWORK MARKETING.
What does MARKETING mean?
Answer:
SELLING
SELLING
SELLING
and in case you did not note it, it is about selling.So if you are good at selling, if you love selling, if you feel good about selling, take a career in selling. You can do worst than network marketing providing you are rational and realise you sing up for sales and will sign up others for sales.
If you lie about it, dont' waste your time, you will not go past kindergarden stage, where you all clap in unison to feel good about yourself.
Now think about the product. Is it badly overpriced but they tell you it does not matter because it is not about sales anyway?
Run away.Are there alternative products on shop shelvs for half the price?
Run away.If the product is unique (really not only in their own imagination)
In a market that is growing, and you love passionately dedicating years to make a vaste clientele.
Well it may even be Ok for you.otherwise.
Run away.Fast.
Brent Carr wrote:Property in Australia is overpriced in many areas (regardless of whether your nurse sister or friend teacher managed to buy one) but the fact remains, people are still buying them…..Here we go with the "overpriced" again. Can someone please tell me who is this misterious entity who is robbing people out of their money and force them to buy overpriced properties? I wish I knew how it is done really, because I would like to learn how to sell overpriced machinery and make a killing in the process. Do I need a gun perhaps?
Quote:….. I'm certain it’s not paradise!!! I see many problems Australia has created for itself that locals don’t see.Thank God for those discerning South Africans who have a wealth of experience in this and can enlighten us poor sods.
Quote:The Australian gov does not seem to want to intervene and do anything drastic at all to make cheaper housing. In South Africa they are now forcing developers to create "affordable housing" in any new prime golf estate developments.Now there is a novel idea! Affordable housing, of course!…how didn't I think of that? May be you should tell Keving to tell Obummer now that they are all chum chum. Could tell him at the next meeting at the Church of Climatology they are both fervorous members. I am sure the US market has never heard of it before.
I love reading older post and watch the white-marble-tower replies of some who apparently own a cristal ball and let us, (poor sods) in on some quick reading from it… from time to time.
I bought two blocks of 8 flats in a mining town got it rented for 2 years at twice the cost of keeping them and paying 100% mortgage, and sold them more than doubling the money paid.
Thre is money to be made and there is money to be lost, there is the right timing to get in and the right timing to get out. That in essence is the skill of the entrepreneur in any area not only RE.The holier-than-you replies, particularly those who profetise doom and gloom are not helpful really, and should stick to a different religion. I am told that Global Warming religion is asking for accolites. May be worth a try there. Plenty of fake doom a gloom to be fanfared around there.
My opinion only of course, not to be taken too seriously
Campbelltwon/ bradbury
The change from net rental property losses to net investment losses to be added back on to taxable income particularly for self funded retirees who claim the Seniors Health Card is an ideological change in order to "get " those "filthy rich" (clearly not working families) who earn around $80,000 combined income.
Labour ideology is to support those who are hopeless and punish those who are successful, always has and always will be. I call it the Robin Hood party.
Just like everything the Labour party does, it is ineffective and only for show and to please the crowd who cheers.Net investment losses refers only to income and not capital losses, therefore only someone who borrowed money from the bank to buy shares and who is in negative territory and holds on to the shares and wants to wear the loss for a while hoping for a recovery need to declare such loss. If you bought shares at 10 and sold them at 5, you have incurred in a capital loss and can only offset it against a capital gain. Capital gain is income, has always been income, has very generous discounts and is part of our tax law. I don't like it either yet has nothing to do with the social security act.
Super contributions should be completely tax free, that 15% you are paying to put money in is robbery plain and simple.
As for Salary Sacrificing into super, since one is using pre-tax dollars to put away into savings (minus 15% damn it), this is clearly a voluntary action aimed at better one's financial position in the future. To do so and claim to be poor at the same time is rather hypocritical and the SSact should have been amended a long time ago.
As for money can not be accessed before 65, that is of course also wrong since it is at age 55 that you can acces your money.When it comes to have a wing, I am the first to do so with gusto, however I suggest that winging should be aimed at proper targets, not at random.
Clearly venting anger against Centrelink is a waste of air since Centrelink is an agency that delivers the government legislation just like the ATO.
The first thing to do is not voting Labour to begin with. Next is to dig into the government MP at any given occasion on issues like the ETS and call it for what it is TREASON. Demand that governments stop wasting our dollars on propaganda about "global warming". Demand that if there is to be an incentive that it is given to those business who will spend and employ people in Australia. I am sure we all know what should be done, what is wrong and what is right. We just choose the wrong targets and choose to be silent when it demands we cry out at the top of our voices.PS
Quote:Say for example you have $5K in shares and because of the downturn you have lost 50% of their value: well you had to declare the value of those shares in your income estimate anyway, and your tax return etc will prove that you went backwards by $2500. So hey presto, you can take more money from them because your annual income estimate has gone down. That is *really* what happens, and I would be surprised if this announcement actually changes anything major (although if I had seen this before I rang them this afternoon, I would have asked for you, but I can't sit on the phone for another half hour!)Lets see..you have $5k in shares vlaue drops down to half …you had to declare the value in your income estimate? Not really.
Shares value is part of your assets and not your income. You can hve millions in shares yet no income if the company decided to reinvest, and conversely you could have a bunch of devalued shares yet a sustained and growing income from a company that may be suffering from poor image yet has a sound business going.Income from share dividend is one thing, market value of shares is another entirely different. So no hey presto at all, unless you are being assessed and limited by the amount of your assets and not your income, you can not take more money from "them" at all.
Least affordable versus most affordable.
So if the Gold coast is the least affordable spot, which is the most affordable? Albania? Cuba? Zimbabwe?The concept of "affordability" is a concept invented by politician to tickle people's fancy and is absolutely meaningless to anyone who entertains the idea of being a RE investor or any sort of investor for that matter.
Why don't we try to introduce the concept of shares affordability?
Lets try…. Google comes to mind as the "least affordable" Shame on Google!Please guys at Google do your best to make shares more affordable. Make a few wrong moves so that I can buy a couple of dozen since my income is not just up to it yet. Of course after I buy can you please make the price go up again?
Most affordable shares? Telstra of course you guessed right! Our mexican hero, true to his calling has done the right thing for the people and brought the company to its knees in order for you an me to have affordable shares. Now that is my kind of Hero!!!Come on guys, be serious, until we live in a democratic western country the price is the consequence of offer and demand and some tinkering at the edges by wannabe socialist politicians. That's it.
Affordability…you have to love them! I want to live in the least affordable place on earth…Of course! and you do to, you just don't know it yet.
PS
Actually I know the most affordable place on earth. It's Fiji right now.
The natives who have taken the government by force, have altered the constitution and brought down the age of retirement to age 50. So they have retired legally all the government officials who are/were in it's vast majority Indians ant put them on $3000 a year. Since they can not survive they have put their house on the market. So 3000 nice properties on the market what do you think has done to the affordability? Wow, you can buy a 200k house for 50k or less. Now that is real social engineering and lateral thinking at its best. Pity the tourists have all left and the good houses have been broken in by the natives who now squat in them.
But it is affordable I concede.WJ Hooker wrote:Lets be real. Property has been flat for last 3 – 4 years relative to inflation. Australian property is overvalued by at least 20% relative to the rest of the world.
……………
Is it only myself that feel house prices are going to come crashing down over the next few months or years??I don't get this obsession of quoting "overvalued" RE market. What is overvalued? Who is this misterious conspirator that overcharges the buyer? Prices are the reflection of demand and unlike Cuba we have a relatively free market. Relative I say because every man and his dog who owns a dog kennel tries his best in fanning some influence on the market be it by krying poor, krying foul, assuring that the sky is falling as we speek or that prices will double next year.
Prices have been flat for the last 3 years? Not really, prices have gone down for 3 years and are now slowly and patchy on the way up again.
When the current governemt credentials are probably the worst we ever had, no rate increase or halving of the first home buyer's grant will "crash" the market.
There is something much more sinister to keep watch and protest against at the top of your voice, and that is the "emmissions" trading scheem. (I don't know why but the word emmissions invariably reminds me of passing wind)As far as RE market, I think that the last year has been a golden year for investors and the next one to 2 years will be just as good. The influence of the unemployment figures will pale when compared to the population boom from birth and migration, and Sydney gets most of it.
The specter of the baby boomers retiring and moving all to the Gold Coast has been done to death. Yes there will be a trend but it will not change life as we know it.
We will have to go back to early 90ties to find a time of opportunities like today and it will probably take another 10 or 15 years to repeat itself.
If you don't like the market as it is now, try Dubay. They are selling at 50% discount. Tell me when are you ever to see this again?PS
Who was that genius that teaches economics in some university who sold his property after the boom 3 years ago and predicted that the proerety would lose 50% of its value in a few years and he would be able to buy a better house with the money he is keeping safely in the bank?
Pure genius!When talking recession / correction / depression and similar thoughts in real estate, the one thing to keep in mind is the following: Is the person doing the talking going to gain or lose from promoting this alleged scenario?
And the reality is that there are as many people hoping for a crash as there are people praying for it not to happen. And clearly those who desire a crash are out there with somber sembiance pretending to carefor the other half whilst getting loan approval to buy their property as soon as it hits rock bottom.
Of course the naive that believes the hipe or the doom is just as guilty.
Yet the market is made purely out of this intangible "belief" and nothing else.What do you do?
The answer is usualy made simple by the doom and the hipe merchants.
Buy when everyone is selling and sell when everyone is buying…and don't tell anyone.
Concerned face or happy face according to popular mood helps but remember to act the opposit way.PS
All this talk about the new great depression and the biggest financial crisis ever is a big con anyway.
The only thing people ought to be concerned is the new tax thought up by Al Gore and Company to tax the whole world and pretend to care for the environment.
The Emission Trading Scheme is the largest con on earth and those who believe human activity is changing the climate and furthermore (what arrogance) that humans can change the climat back are as deluded as the believers in the tooth fairy.
If the planet is warming up this can only be good news for humans. Warmer is better, we may be able to have crops in Antarctica and Canada, Whohoo food crisis solved, not to mention more water front properties with deep water acces.Economist, economic commentators, financial experts, fiancial writers, general economic bla bla noise makers fall all into one or another category.
They either invest in the market they presume to know and talk about it…or they do not invest and just talk about it.I made it a rule for myself, not to listen to anyone who's investment protfolio is smaller than 10 times mine and growing, and who can not show a sound track record of a minimum of double the time I have been in the market.
I am having a realy quite time lately figuring out things as they come up day by day, mainly dismissing what I read or hear as noise because of the origin, and focusing on a few who interestingly enough are very cautious and clearly do not throw any prediction around as fact. What scares me most is when people ask me for my advice.
All I like to say is that there is only the present.
That is why it is called a present !kell wrote:……..house with ugly carpet………… Checked underneath and its beautiful wooden floors (WHY DO PEOPLE CARPET??) anyway I can pull up the carpet I have done that before .. More the question.. How do I sand and polish the floors… Is it better to get a pro in to do it? If so.. Who? And how much?I leave the decision to polish or re-carpet for you to make.
If you decide to rip carpet off and polish here are some hints. By the way this are my hints not hearsay.When you take off the carpet take special care when you take the wooden edge off that holds it in place. Those are nailed to the floor. The nails get rusty and when you take them off they come off with a piece of your floor. If they seem hard to pull, split the wood off the nail and pull the nail gently out at the same angle it is in. If a piece of floor splits, have some good exterior glue ready and glue it back in, holding it in place with masking tape, and press it down with a small piece of wood and a weight on top. Have putty ready to apply to the inevitalbe holes and cracks. Buy from flooring suppliers, not ordinary hardware putty.Sanding: Don't do it.
Reasons: If you hire a floor sander you will get a real piece of junkthat is a drum sander. Drum sanders consist of a round barrel covered in sandpaper. Consider the skills necessary to keep a round turning drum covered in very rough paper steadily goinglifting at the exact time you need to turn or change directionand lower it wihtout diggin an irreparble channel in your floor.
The professionals buy much more expensive machines that have two drumsa lifta platform to guide it and are a breeze to use.
As for the suggestion to hire a beltsander I suppose the author means a Makita or Hitachi 4" belt sander. If you like the looks of your floor that has probably never seen a sander and is as good as brand new only probably very drydont even think about using a belt sander.
You will do such a poor job that you are likely to trip on the grooves you make. I have seen countless floors "done by the owner". In fact every thrid house that has floorbords you can look behind the door and see the trail of destruction done by hubby jobs.Having said thatif you are really desperate or can not get tradespeople in your areaor plainly don't have the moneydo the rounds of KennardsActive Hire and the like and see if you can get a decent enough machine. Take it to your friend's/ Mum/ Aunty shed and practice a bit. God knows you may learn a bit and get away with doing it yourself.Remember that sanding is only half the job. Now you must polish.
Before polish your place must be meticulously surgically vacuumed.AND THE NEXT DAY VACUUMED AGAINbecause the particles come down overnight and your vacuum is not a Kerby so the filtering is dubious at best. Shake curtains bang on light fittings brush over door architrave, window sills etc. Any particle of sawdust that sticks to your polish will swell and turn into an ugly pimple.
Now you must choose polish.There are a lot on the market however only two real choices.
Polyurethane or Tung oil. The rest is rubbish (water based enviro..mental etc) unless you want to paint your floor wash white. A good third choice.Polyurethane is a killer to apply. Fumes galore two days away from the house, feeling of having chain smoked cheap cigars from Paraguay, but if you choose satin finish is durable and ok. Hides a bit of your mistakes (not much don't get too exited) but does not allow repairs on small patches. Also needs a floor polishing machine for finish
Tung oil is easy to apply, a bit more expensive and will show every single little scratch yet you get used to the rustic look and can be re-applied anytime even on a small patch if needed.
Got a scratch? Sand it and oil it.Painting is another option easy and looks great.
Now get the yellow pages and hire a pro.If you live in Sydney avoid like the plague those that live in Lakemba and the one that live in Cabramatta even if they do the job for free or give you money to do it. You are better off sanding with sandpaper and a block and paint with a toothbrush yourself.All the best!
As for buying, there was never a better time…providing you can afford the repayments at 5% and at 10%. If not you are taking a considerable risk. Labor governments are notorious for manipulating markets and legislate with the grace of a drunken elefant in a china shop, so expect everything, including re-election by the massess holding $900 regardless of braking every single promise made to be elected.
Yours question needs only a bit of mathematics
Work out how long will it take you to recuperate the $13,000 if you drop from 8.4 to 5%
Consider for how long will the v interest rate stay at 5 or lower.
Work out how long will it take for the v.interst rate to reach 8.4 again
When you have negotiated your way out of your contract, consider writing a colorful letter to the CEO of the bank in question and send a carbon copy to our "honorable" treasurerKeep an eye on the fixed interest rate on offer.
If fixed interest rate on offer are lower or equal to the variable interest rate, that means the variable will drop further and the bank is trying to catch you in a soon-to-be-too-high rate.
If the variable interest rate on offer starts to be higher than the variable , that means the rate will slowly start going up.
The speed of the increase can be guessed by the differential between the existing variable rate and the fixed rate on offer. Not an easy question to answer. No one knows what to do, and the one that think they know and say so are only seeking reinforcement for their actions in the assent from others.
If you sell now, and the First Home Grant is not extended past July, and the banks start cutting lending down to 90 or 80% prices will go down further and you sold at the best possible price…that if your property is worth less than $500k
If the fhog is extended and the share market keeps on going up as it has lately, banks may stay put with 95% lending and you may get a better price later in the year or next year.
As for buying 2008 was the best year ever. If you want to buy now, there is plenty on offer but also plenty of competition from new buyers with Robin Hood's money..
And there are a lot of other possible scenarios like wait and see if lower prices will come reading eagerly the newspaper for bad news scanning for words like "crash", "disaster", "depression" etc. And if you are a professor of economy and sold your house last year on the gamble that prices will go south, have as much possible exposure to media and sell your doom and gloom for a price in order to discourage more people out of the market and create if possible an even worst scenario than the one described by our pathetic yet fearless "leaders" with photo opportunity in sleeve-up and tie less somber faced fashion.However as a general rule I would say that if your work mates in the office say it is time to buy…then you sell. If they say what a disaster must sell…then you buy
Don't ask for RE advise to your accountant, financial "adviser" and don't ask your friends and relatives unless they are investors with at least 10 properties and 10 years of experience. Make that 20 properties and 20 years of experience
As for borrowing get a mortgage broker to look into borrowing choices and repayment capacity, the fact that you borrowed to clear debts tells me you may be close to the limit in your repayments(?)
Remember investing is good but has a risk component. In your case that risk component is the one that you must consider carefully. Underestimating risk is what brings most investors down.A better idea is large multiple bedroom houses for shared accomodation for pensioners that are still independent. I know of one with 8 bedrooms all rented individually to different pensioners at $150 a week per room. Shared bathrooms living room and kitchen.
Something like the student accomodation but wihtout the headaches of students trashing it.At $99 you could replace them every year/ It is an organised rip off.
Talk to your electrician and tell him how much would he charge to replace batteries and test on all of the properties. I doubt very much he will charge you $500 if properties are within a reasonable distance.DIYPM wrote:I had looked into renting out my properties as holiday accommadation but found it challenging to get short term holiday rental insurance and also when I rang the Office Of Fair Trading (QLD) they said that a holiday letting licence is required to do this. I even completed a profile on stayz but got turned off the idea because I don't want to do anything illegal. What are your thoughts on this?Insurance. When I took out my landlord insurance I told the NRMA / GIO/ CGU that it was a holiday rental for weekends and that no formal lease would be signed and they all turned me down. However I took out an insurance through Westpac and they said it was not a problem and that it was within the parameters of their underwriter.
As for the fair trading license I find it peculiar. Make a few more enquiries I wouldn't be surprised they tell you some baloney story. I once rang the ATO and was told I had to pay GST on my rental property purchase because it was an investment …yea right!I received a call last week from a person that with very grave voice, like a funeral director, told me he wanted an appointment to help me in my situation.
When I asked who he was and if he was buying or selling he kept on going with his line of "my situation". I don't have much time for bull artists so I told him if he could explain what situation that may be. To what he replied as if he was reading my clinical history from the chart at the bottom of my hospital bed. You have a rental property and the problems created to the world financial market by speculators has brought you to your situation.
Now lets draw a merciful curtain over the un professionalism, mediocrity and poor ethics of this call and lets concentrate on why was this hungry soul using this line to obtain a meeting to sell me some overpriced and useless "advise".
Clearly he had done his homework and found that most people respond to blame placing on others. If you blame the powerful and call them speculators you are on a winner. Let's go to the pub and have a beer over it! If he then pulls a whole set of world problems as if he knew what he was talking about and rattles along blaming everything from the price of butter to the last dodo barbaque onto those who have more than you, two cars (imagine the waste you can only drive one right?) more than one property, you can only live in one cave, what do you want two for? Etc…. I am sure you have heard all this before.The point however and the only I am interested in, is that all the scores of people who blame their inaction on others, particularly speculators and greedy rich, (since we all know that every single person with money has broken the law and buys Mercedes and performs fake surgery) has his poor success rate to blame on his own set of values. Precisely those values that he thinks make him meritory to a medal to honesty. The fact that his values are false, and that proving it is a matter of a few hours of research is irrelevant. Our (his) values are so tightly nit to our character that without help it is very difficult to extricate oneself from the maze that is holding one behind.
So if the market is down the proactive person finds opportunity, the talkative person finds who to blame for the losses.
If the market is up, the proactive investor sells, the bla bla person find someone to blame for the "un affordability" and "unsustainable" and the "baby boomers that retire and bring it all down" and those who are left behind and will never be able to afford a home" and also "world peace", and why not the fact that the world rotates anticlockwise if you look from the north pole down…etcYet…nota bene…for the person with the value ingrained in his soul, "rich is bad, poor is good" this all makes a lot of sense and I am some sort of monster defending the indefensible, supporting the immoral and the corrupt.
So as you can see it all comes down to our choice of values.
Your values either serve you or they do not. If you aspire to being on a crusade against all evil landlords or against private property in general, this are the value to have.
If you on the other hand are or believe to be on a path to success by enterprise in RE or any other for that matter yet still cling onto those values, they will be clearly in your way.Just my thought.
Interesting post.
The point I am interested in is not the moral or ethics of real estate investing. We have enough religious wars as it is to add yet another one. The only point I am interested in is to show that we, or rather our set of values determines what we allow ourselves to achieve.
If someone considers selling a property at a large profit "speculative" and the meaning of such word in his mind is morally corrupt or unethical and in anyway wrong, will the person be able to make big profits in real estate?
Answer no.
Furthermore the person will equate in his mind and probably not even consciously, success in RE as synonym of unethical or morally corrupt. And that is precisely my point. The masses primed by teachers, parents, religious leaders, media and assorted friends have in the vast majority set in their mind this concept that rich is evil and poor is virtuous.Now one can do two things: First, debate how this is wrong and bring up scores of examples of very good rich people and very bad poor people, or vice versa.
And this would archive nothing.The other thing to do is much more interesting. Consider what is the effect of believing the above premise.
The result of adopting the above anti-value reflects in every single action the person takes. Every time a person needs to make a choice it will make the choice that takes him away from becoming corrupt and morally objectable like those evil rich people. THis is inevitable and is at the root of the functions of our brain.
So our acquired values determine what we achieve or lack to.The practical person would immediately realise that if we can change our set of values we would change the results in our life just like changing a program in our computer.
This is of course easier said then done. To do that it is necessary to understand how did we acquire those values and for what reason. Exploring those remote origin will usually bring us to the conclusion that many of the values we keep dearest and that we believe to be essential to who we consider ourselves to be, are in fact not serving is to achieve the purposes we seek.That is why I said it was interesting to see people who seek success in RE burdened by values or rather anti-values that would be their worst enemies to achieve such success….and lets it be clear that in no way I express value judgement like it is wrong to do this and wrong to do that. Only exploring why things happen.
This days you can buy foreclosure properties in the US for a fraction of their value. $10,000, $5000 and $1000 are not uncommon.
Would you buy this properties?
If not why not.
If yes why?No need to be irritated, since this is not a criticism. I don't refer to any of the usual values as "good" or "bad", right or wrong, You are wrong I am right kind of thing. I said I was amused, not offended or irritated. Plus this thread has 28 pages. Yours is just one post of many. Plus I read between the lines or like you say "too much" into it.
My observations are that in general people tend to have conflicting values when it comes to money and riches, and those conflicts surface in the expressions they choose to use and not intentionally.
Yet think for a moment, imagine a writer who believes all famous writers are idiots, or a musician who hates the guts of all from Mozart to the Beatles.
Hard to imagine they will succeed.
Yet when it comes to money it appears that it is OK to think wrong of those who have succeeded, and to lable as greed anything that goes over our own comfort zone.
I once conducted an experiment and asked an audience to write on a paper how much they think is "OK" for a person to earn, and how much is "wrong". Interestingly people wrote down about twice as what they earned themselvs, with answers that considered "obscene" to earn 10 times their own salary.
I find this fascinating since it demonstrates that our own set of preconditioned values determines what we are actualy able or rather allow ourselvs to earn.Not that there is anything wrong with it!
