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Do you know that saying: "Don't ask me how I made my first million?" Many of the wealthy people became rich at first through business practices that either wer

by mtgx 8y ago

Do you know that saying: "Don't ask me how I made my first million?" Many of the wealthy people became rich at first through business practices that either were in a grey area from the beginning, outright illegal, or they were made illegal later on. However, they got to keep their money, either because laws tend not to be retroactive, or because nobody caught them, etc. I agree there is an element true in "regulations will have the monopolists even more to entrench themselves in their markets," but mostly because they got their wealth through practices that are now made illegal, and they get to keep all of that wealth when nobody else can do the same anymore. That's really the problem here.

adventured 8y ago
There are 11 million millionaires in the US. You've got it exactly backwards: few of them did something illegal to earn that first million. There are not many grey areas in US law as it pertains to business, there are very few. Most millionaires derive their wealth from ordinary small businesses. The US isn't the wild west of Capitalism. It's a very regulated economic system. It has been that way for a very long time now. At least 10m of those 11 million millionaires generated the bulk of their wealth in the last 30-40 years, a time in which the US economy was largely as regulated as it is today. They didn't get that wealth by not having to deal with regulations or laws that were imposed later - the US has more than doubled its millionaire count just since 1996. I grew up in a very poor area of the US. I knew at least two dozen self-made millionaires. Every one of them did it via rather boring small businesses: insurance agencies, convenience stores, shops, franchises, publishing, real estate, car dealerships, etc. Not one of them operated in a legal grey area. There was no magic to it either, it was grinding year after year for multiple decades. I've also spent my entire adult life researching business, business formation, finance, economics, and reading every book I can get my hands on for those areas. I've read dozens of books on the history of business in the US over the last 25 years. I spend hours per day reading every consequential financial figure and article that gets published about the US and global economies. The notion that a meaningful share of rich people get started via doing something illegal, is nothing more than propaganda, and entirely unsupported propaganda at that. You will never see such claims supported with evidence.

by mtgx 8y ago

adventured 8y ago

There are 11 million millionaires in the US. You've got it exactly backwards: few of them did something illegal to earn that first million. There are not many grey areas in US law as it pertains to business, there are very few. Most millionaires derive their wealth from ordinary small businesses. The US isn't the wild west of Capitalism. It's a very regulated economic system. It has been that way for a very long time now. At least 10m of those 11 million millionaires generated the bulk of their wealth in the last 30-40 years, a time in which the US economy was largely as regulated as it is today. They didn't get that wealth by not having to deal with regulations or laws that were imposed later - the US has more than doubled its millionaire count just since 1996. I grew up in a very poor area of the US. I knew at least two dozen self-made millionaires. Every one of them did it via rather boring small businesses: insurance agencies, convenience stores, shops, franchises, publishing, real estate, car dealerships, etc. Not one of them operated in a legal grey area. There was no magic to it either, it was grinding year after year for multiple decades. I've also spent my entire adult life researching business, business formation, finance, economics, and reading every book I can get my hands on for those areas. I've read dozens of books on the history of business in the US over the last 25 years. I spend hours per day reading every consequential financial figure and article that gets published about the US and global economies. The notion that a meaningful share of rich people get started via doing something illegal, is nothing more than propaganda, and entirely unsupported propaganda at that. You will never see such claims supported with evidence.