You are thinking the wrong way. Selling stuff on ebay will normally get you nowhere fast. you need to think in terms of systems not selling stuff piece by piece. Business to me is one that runs by itself, a systematic money machine that has nothing to do with you "selling" directly. Setting up a recuring income stream is easier than you think-- start thinking in these terms and you should be able to start something that willl last. surf
Sandy, the boomers are not doing too well judging by their retirement savings and they should just about break even with SSI. SSI was supposed to be welfare for the old and sick, now it's a 25 year retirement... solutions? I'm afraid only pain will make americans realize that they need to produce more and borrow less. Good jobs? If you mean a union job that provides 75K a year, full health care, and pension at 55 all for tightening bolts at a factory, then I'm afraid that was all just a temporary blip of history since that has shown to be unsustainable. Productivity is what underpins living standards, not unions. We need more high productivity tools like the computer. Affordable housing? In my area I can buy a double wide in the country for $40K. Pretty cheap. Once again though americans think a 4 bedroom mcmansion is a need. I have good news though, housing should come down. I also suggest moving to somewhere cheap. Health care is so damned high because we are so damned sick, expect too much, and produce too litte. Old people on medicare need to die instead of laying in a home costing $150K a year, we need to stop saving every single crack baby, and mostly people have to take more responsibility for their lives and health- that won't happen though. The endgame is bankruptcy.
I list a bunch of items all at once, get the emails when they sell, print the postage labels, throw the item in a box, and drop it at the post office. Probably not as easy as it sounds, but it was pretty nice. What is so bad about that? The goal is to get something that I can make money at consistently and pay the bills, and then roll that money into other things like what you talk about. I used to have a few vending machines, but itâs just a few quarters here and there and it is hard to find a lot of locations to make it worthwhile.
You seem mad at the world. Well the baby boomers benefitted for years from inflation, so I have no problem with their portfolioâs being cut in half. Buying the Dow 30 years ago at 500 and buying a house for 30k that is now worth 500k, doesnât make you an investing genius or hard working. 75k jobs are a bit of an extreme. I get $4.50 an hour plus tips when I get them and no benefits. Iâm barely getting by on that, so even twice that would make a huge difference. I think there is just too many people and not enough jobs. The market has gotten very tight. Productivity unfortunately reduces jobs as computers are now doing what humans used to. Thatâs just the way it goes, but newer technology should also create more jobs. There is always the same amount of money out there, itâs just continuosly switching hands between the few and the masses and vice versa. I do live in a high cost housing area, but Iâve been here my whole life and this is home for now. I just canât get up and move half way across the country. Hopefully houses will continue to keep fallling. There are a lot of apartments and condos around me. Obviously not everybody is living in this mansion that you speak of. I think your points on health care are valid, but a little sympathy is ok. Of course longer life spans will cost more. However youâre using the typical political useless talk about responsibility. I was born with glaucoma. Over the past 3 years I had 2 very minor surgeryâs by 2 different doctors. They knocked me out for about 2 hours. All of this cost about $2,600 each. My health insurance covered both. Iâm not seeing how personal responsibility could have prevented that. $2600 for 3 hours is pretty pricey and that was minor surgery.
My good friend and I went to college together 20 years ago. In high school, he worked his butt off and saved a lot of money. I worked as little as possible and blew most of my money on junk. (I am not proud of this, just stating the facts) When we paid for college, they took all of our money, his big pile and my little pile. We both got student loans, mine was only slightly higher than his. The rest of the money was paid by grants. A big pile of grant money for me and a small pile of grant money for him. This is an anecdotal example of why it doesn't always pay to save. There are disincentives like this built into the structure of our society. It was not fair to my buddy, he got screwed for doing the right thing, and that shouldn't happen. (OTOH, the gov got a good return on it's investment by sending me to college, in the form of subsequent tax revenue).
On the other hand, someone who makes no significantly bad decisions *cannot* get wiped out by any market event at all, no matter how extreme (bad luck outside the markets can of course hit them e.g. cancer, car accident etc). Trading is one of the few entrepreneurial businesses where the role of bad luck can be almost entirely eliminated.
Once again though americans think a 4 bedroom mcmansion is a need. --------------------------------------- Not really, but often times that is the only tax break that is available for high income earners. Also, if one could assume a %4 appreciation (or pick any % number you like) it adds up much better on a 300k home than a 40k home over the years.