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Last Christmas, I conducted an automobile/mobility experiment. In the interest of highlighting the plight of that delicious holiday fowl, I went cold turkey. I parked my car in the garage and committed to only use public transportation. These were the rules of the experiment – Monday to Friday in the commute to and from work, in addition to any business of social meetings from 6 am to 8 pm, I was only allowed to use publicly available transport. For Mexico City, that includes the following: metro, buses, bike shares, electric scooters, and public rideshares like Uber/Didi/Cabify. I was unable to mooch off friends or colleagues. Let me explain the results with reference to the greatest show on television that explains all the mysteries of life – Seinfeld. Allow me to set the scene. Kramer uses briefs because his "boys need a house" until he discovers that he has a low sperm count. He then switches to boxers but finds that there is "nothing holding" him "in place" and he is "flipping and flopping". In the next scene, Kramer walks back into Jerry's apartment, and this is the exchange: JERRY: Well it looks like you've adjusted to the boxers. KRAMER: Wells, I wouldn't go as far as that. JERRY: You went back to the Jockeys? KRAMER: Wrong again. JERRY: Oh, no. JERRY: Don't you see what's going' on here??? .. No boxers, no Jockeys... JERRY: The only thing between him and us is a thin layer of gabardine... JERRY: Kramer, say it isn't so. KRAMER: Oh, it be so. I'm out there, Jerry, an' I'm lllovin' every minute of it!!! JERRY: Don't you need a little... help? KRAMER: Surprisingly, no. I'm freee, I'm unfettered... I'm like a naked innocent boy rrroamin' the countryside!! That is how I felt during those three weeks. Free and unfettered. There was no need to worry about psychotic drivers cutting into my lane, no need to stress about parking, and most importantly, I could focus on important business of the day – such as improving my Tetris score. There is no love in owning a car – there is love in driving a car. Car ownership opens your life to a world of complications – pushy car salespeople, rapid devaluation, hidden fees, and costs, insurance, taxes, gasoline, maintenance, repairs, fines, and parking. In a world where there is a plethora of renting and sharing options, who in their right mind would you want to buy? I am not saying that you avoid all these complications when you rent or share. You only pay for the time you use the car and not when it is gathering dust in the garage. If, however, you are hell-bent on owning a car ( here are SIX reasons why now may the best time ever to buy a second-hand car). Reason 1: Simple Supply and Demand I am not a huge fan of economics. I learned very little from my three years of university economics. The only thing I do recall is the concept of supply and demand. If there is more supply than demand, then prices go down. Demand - Softer than a Sumo Wrestlers Glutes after a midnight binge of Häagen-Dazs 1) Shared mobility services such as Uber and Lyft are a body-blow to the demand for cars. As shared mobility services grow, their impact on other modes of transportation will have important ramifications for consumers, automakers, and policymakers. You can expect a major automaker to go tits up in the next decade. Young and old alike are reconsidering the wisdom of buying cars. Prudent families are buying one SUV to cart around the kids while dad "ubers" to and from work. Millennials and generations Zs do not want to be tied down by car ownership and are starting to recognize cars as liabilities as opposed to assets. People are beginning to understand the total cost of car ownership. When one factors in finance, maintenance, insurance, parking, fines, taxes, fuel, it may work out cheaper to ride-hail. 2) Financial uncertainty creates consumer paralysis. People that are facing a wall of worry will not execute major purchases. Top of the list of major purchases are houses, cars, and the augmentation/reduction of human body parts (plastic surgery). COVID 19 has created a financial paralysis that we have not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. According to data from tradineconomics.com (https://bit.ly/3h6bqim), new car sales in January and February 2020 were 34 million units. In March, April and May total sales fell off a cliff and were strapped to a respirator in the ICU. In March 11.4 million units were sold, 8.6 million in April, and 12.2 million in May. These numbers are uglier than a swamp donkey after a brawl with an inbred junkyard dog. Used cars are not being spared the misery. With almost everyone sitting at home and tens of millions of people losing their jobs, used automobile sales in the USA were reportedly down 64% in the last week of April. Supply – it is Raining Cars, Hallelujah COVID is causing havoc in the car rental market. With business and leisure travel severely lower, car rental companies are starting to trim down the size of their fleets. The Hertz bankruptcy, which is not entirely on account of COVID, could cause a flood of second-hand carts on the market which could push prices down. Cash constrained car owners are also likely to run fire-sales in a desperate attempt to raise money which could open some nice discounts on the higher end of the market. In summary, Reason 2: It is Not New Buying a new car is the worst financial decision you can make. Something happens to the chemical balances of the human brain when it enters a new car dealership. The combination of shining chrome, the smell of fresh leather, free coffee, and the offer of doughnuts immediately results in the evaporation of common sense and good judgment. If the potential buyer is a male, and if you throw in a combination of female cleavage and lingerie, the speed of this evaporation is almost instantaneous. The second the new set of tires come squeaking off the shining showroom floor and hits the asphalt, that new automobile loses between twenty and thirty percent of its value. Slow whited people who believe that a new car is an investment are deluded. Buying a new car is worse than buying stocks the day before a stock market crash. The stock market may lose 20-30 percent in one day, but there is every possibility that these losses will be recovered and over the medium term you may even make money. Buying a new car is like buying Enron stock at $100 twenty years ago. Reason 3: Cheap is no Longer Nasty When I was growing up back in the 80s, certain car brands were uglier than my hairy aunt amvis after a heavy night of boozing and bingo with the girls. Buying a Hyundai, Kia, or Skoda would almost guarantee that you would spend more time on the side of the road with your finger out than you would inside the car breathing in noxious fumes. These days, the combination of brutal global competition between automakers and the fact that global consumers are more connected than the Manson Family means you can count the number of unreliable car brands on one hand. This means that finding a good solid unit at half the price of a new one, that will not leave you stranded on the side of the road and vulnerable to pedophiles and politicians are relatively low. Reason 4: Lower Insurance Premiums The selling of insurance is the biggest scam since snake oil during the California gold rush. The product is awesome but the way it is sold is the capital of Dodge. There are good reasons for this. No one likes to buy insurance. It is not an impulse buy. No one is filled with joy and satisfaction when the policy on their car needs to be renewed. We don’t want insurance but we know that we need it. It is prudent to transfer specific risks to a third party, but prudent does not sell. Insurance companies know their product is unsexy. They, therefore, need to inject it full of collagen and silicone and dress it up in an underwire bra and leather mini skirt. The job of selling insurance is as attractive as sitting in a toll booth in the middle of a dark tunnel surrounded by incontinent bats. To sweeten the deal, insurance companies need to incentivize these salespeople. I have friends who sell insurance. They spend half their time traveling to exotic locations to attend insurance "conventions". All expenses are paid by the insurance companies. We are talking about three to four trips a year to ski in the Swiss Alps, desert camps in Dubai, island hopping in the Mediterranean on private yachts, and private game reserves in the Serengeti. There are two legal ways to reduce your insurance premiums. One is to increase the deductible and the other is to reduce the insured amount. The downside of increasing the deduction is that you take the first loss. If your car is worth $20,000 and you weasel in a $5,000 deduction, the first $5,000 of loss or damage is for your account. The great beauty of second-hand cars is that they have already been depreciated so your insurable amount is reduced. This means lower premiums and fewer skiing tips for your insurance broker. Reason 5: Saving the Planet Consumers are starting to pay attention to the environmental footprint of the articles they buy. In Mexico City, mounting pollution in the early 1990s leads to a curious decision from the government. They decided to give the Beetle taxi cabs their first official facelift. All cabs were required to be painted green. This would lead people to believe they were more environmentally friendly. They even went so far as to call the cabs "Ecological Taxis" even though Mexican built Beetles were still carbureted. They did not have catalytic converters until 1991, and fuel injection was introduced two years later. Despite the "eco" paint jobs, the VW's were the same cars that had always been contributing to Mexico City's ever-growing pollution problems. The fact that a product looks green or says that it's green is no longer enough. Today's discerning consumer can see through clever tactics and demand more. Nowadays, retailers cannot just say they have a goal, they need to show the consumer that they are acting upon it. How would you rank the automakers in terms of their environmental responsibility? When it comes to environmental responsibility, there are three kinds of companies – those that give a damn about climate action, those that don't give a damn, and those that work actively against it. The research from InfluenceMap revealed that since 2015, Fiat Chrysler, Ford, Daimler, BMW, Toyota, and General Motors have been among the strongest opponents of regulations to help countries meet the 1.5C warming limit in the Paris agreement. In the four years since then, lobbying from the car industry in the US and Europe has attempted to block, delay and frustrate initiatives to regulate and reduce emissions from the transport sector – which is responsible for 15% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – and slow the move to electric vehicles, the report says (https://bit.ly/2XJQQN6). If you absolutely need to have a car, and you are concerned about the environment, you are doing the world a disservice buying a new car and supporting these dirty buggers. The building and disposal of a vehicle have a significant, negative environmental impact. If you buy a used car, then it'll be a vehicle that has already passed through the manufacturing process. So, buying a used car is a green option. Reason 6: Peace of Mind Motoring Buying a new car is stressful. Not only do you know you are being screwed with all the hidden charges, commissions and fees, but at the very moment you drive your pride and joy off the lot, you are faced with a new wall of worry linked to the protection and preservation of your unit. What happens if someone keys your door or opens their door against yours, or you spill your newly acquired Starbucks Chocolate Crunch Frappuccino all over the passenger seat, or even worse your date throws up on the dashboard. Second hand or preloved cars help to tone down this anxiety and allows you to truly enjoy the unbridled pleasure of sharing the road with thousands of cold-blooded psychopaths that all want to drive in your lane! #finance #money #business #investing #investment #entrepreneur #financialfreedom #success #stocks #wealth #trading #realestate #stockmarket #invest #motivation #forex #bitcoin #investor #accounting #cryptocurrency #marketing #wallstreet #startup #trader #personalfinance #entrepreneurship #credit #smallbusiness #goals

Oscar Wilde said that work is the curse of the drinking classes. I graduated from law school in 1994. Given I was neither blessed with the brilliant wit nor flamboyant style of Oscar Wilde, I faced the prospect of either getting a job or starting a business. The lure of a steady income with medical and dental, a retirement plan and paid vacations was too strong to ignore. Unable to convince any South African law firm to employ me at minimum wage to perform back-breaking work as an articled clerk, I threw myself into the world of banking and finance. I embarked on a 25-year career of employment. Twenty years into this soul-numbing stint, I realized I had become institutionalized. Everything I did was for the pleasure of my superiors. I also realized I had more than one boss. For three days of the week, I was working for the man with the gold Rolex, the small penis and the red Porsche. For the other two days, I was working for the taxman who did not even trust me to pay him directly. He would go to my corner office boss and get him to pay those two days directly before the money reached my bank account. The taxman would then pass that money to the government who would construct creative schemes to piss it away. Reason 1: You are Making Your Employer Rich This comes fresh out of Karl Marx’s playbook. Marx held that workers in a capitalist society are exploited insofar as they are forced to sell their labor power to capitalists for less than the full value of the commodities they produce with their labor. The longer you work for someone, the more comfortable you become with the monthly paycheck. You think you are acquiring skills and experience, but more often than not the skills you acquire are particular to that job. I spoke with the Chief Financial Officer of one of the world’s largest cement company. He had been in the job for 10 years. He said to me that he was fed up with the company politics and mind games, and was looking for a change, but was finding it difficult to pivot into another job. Ten years with this company had not honed his finance skills. It had simply made him an expert in the systems and processes of that company. The risk of long term employment is that you do not become an expert in your field, but an expert in the internal workings of your employer. If that doesn’t depress you, the outlook is not great. The futurist Yuval Noah Harari speaks about the future of irrelevance. In the past, people were concerned about employer exploitation. Harari says the future challenge is not exploitation but relevance. We must now face the threat of irrelevance as automation, artificial intelligence and big data displace traditional employment. In the same way that the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference; exploitation has to be better than irrelevance. Instead of entrepreneurship being an option for future generations, it may become mandatory. Technology is forcing redundant workers and job market entrants into a corner where the only option is to start a business. Also, as technology revolutionizes the economy and cycles of change shorten, people need to continuously reinvent their skillsets. The days of studying a career and dedicating your professional life to this one career are over. You will need to acquire new skills and embark on a journey of continuous learning. In this world of constant flux, softer skills such as emotional intelligence, communication and negotiation skills, and the ability to sell will stand out. So too will skills of financial literacy and the ability to create opportunities outside the world of big business increase in importance. Do not see your job as being your long term future. Instead you need to see it as your short term university where you can acquire skills, contacts and expertise, and then use this job as a springboard into starting your own business. Reason 2: A Job Puts You on the Wrong Side of the Tax Code I have lived in emerging markets most my adult life - my only stint in the developed world was a couple of years in London. The tax you pay in emerging markets is difficult to accept in the face of endemic corruption and the state of infrastructure and public services. Paying taxes is an obligation and corruption is no reason to abdicate your fiscal responsibilities. If you live in a functioning democracy, you try to bring about change, even if it means voting for the least corrupt candidate. Another option is to understand the tax code. Boning up on tax may sound as exciting as root canal and a fully invasive colonoscopy. However, if you are earning 100 in income, you are probably paying close to 40 in taxes. That alone should pique your interest. Taxes are more slippery than a snake in a barrel of motor oil. Many cannot differentiate between tax avoidance and tax evasion. Tax avoidance is the use of legal allowances and deductions to reduce your taxable income. Tax evasion is the unlawful understatement of your income and or overstatement of your expenses to reduce your taxable income. In understanding the tax code of any country, you must understand the behavior it is promoting. When something exists, I like to know why. Sometimes there is no reason or at least no logical reason. When it comes to tax, the intentions are clear. The backbone of every economy are the entities that employ people. As of 2019, 99 percent of the 30 million firms in the United States were small businesses. These small businesses employed the majority of the workforce. A key indication of the strength of an economy is the level of unemployment. Unemployment in the United States has hit 10 percent on two occasions since World War II, in the 1980s and after the financial crisis of 2008. Not all countries employ the same methodology in counting unemployment. In Mexico in 2020, unemployment was around 3.5 percent which was in line with the United States. That sounds a little odd. In Mexico, any person that has worked at least 1 hour per week (slightly more than the French) are counted as employed. Regardless of how you count it, job creation is a priority of any government. There are two ways for the government to stimulate the job market. One is to hire more people in the government and the other is to promote entrepreneurs to hire more people. Governments want to promote private sector growth and job creation. Taxes are the most powerful arrows in the government’s quiver to achieve this. In 2017, Amazon announced plans to build new headquarters for 50,000 people. They would spend $5 billion on the new construction. More than 200 cities in Canada, Mexico, and the United States offered tax breaks, expedited construction approvals, and other incentives. The most creative incentive came from Tucson, Arizona. They sent a 21-foot saguaro cactus to Amazon. Notwithstanding the oversized gesture of a giant prickly desert plant, Amazon opted for Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia. They offered performance-based incentives worth $573 million, and a bonsai tree. Tax codes offer a plethora of tax deductions to corporations. This motivates entrepreneurs to channel money back into their businesses instead of handing it over to the government. These incentives range from research and development expenses to stock compensation schemes, salaries, depreciation, and loan interest. Employed individuals, on the other hand, are faced with a shorter list of deductions. They are on the wrong side of the tax code. If the government is providing all of these incentives to companies, they need to fill the gap somewhere. Who better than Joe Schmuck who is punching in at 9am and out at 5pm? Financial freedom is obtained by being on the correct side of the tax code and exploiting these legal tax deductions. Being on the wrong side of the tax code also means being on the wrong side of the money beast. Reason 3: Getting a Job is a Low Risk, Low Return Investment Risk is an interesting animal. You can take her out, buy her flowers and even marry her. They only thing you cannot do is eliminate her. Risk, like Keith Richards' liver, cannot be eliminated. It can only be transferred and managed. Insurance policies to do not eliminate risk. They transfer it to professionals who embrace it, manage it and monetize it. Warren Buffett built his fortune on risk. Take a look at the Berkshire Hathaway website (www.berkshirehathaway.com). The company spared no expense in the design of this eighth wonder of the modern world. Click on "Links to Berkshire Subsidiary Companies". Numerous Berkshire subsidiaries are insurance or reinsurance companies. They retail and wholesale risk. Risk is their most important commodity. Without risk, there can be no return. The eternal pursuit of risk avoidance will lead to "a life of quiet desperation and death with your song inside you" (Thoreau). In 2016, David Rubenstein interviewed the Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein. Rubenstein asked Blankfein a question that, at first, seemed dumb. It turned out to be brilliant. He asked: “Lloyd, what is your job?” One would expect the following answer: “Well, Dave, my job is to make strategic decisions about the bank's products, customers, employees, stockholders, and goals”. Instead, he said his job was risk management. That reply blew me away. The job of the CEO of the world's most powerful and influential investment bank was risk management – not risk transfer or elimination, but management. Risk and return go hand in hand. If you want more return, you need more risk. Jeff Bezos of Amazon became the world's wealthiest person in 2018 by taking risk. He put all his eggs in one basket. He went all-in on a little company that sold books over the internet. He grew it to a $1 trillion valuation. On Sept 4th, 2018, Amazon became the second company after Apple to reach a $1 trillion market capitalization. Risk is good as long as it is managed. Bezos made a calculated bet. He knew he could convert Amazon into the world's leading e-commerce site and the world's leader in cloud computing. Now he is working on making Amazon the world's leading online grocery store (through the purchase of Whole Foods) and the world's leading streaming service (competing with Netflix). Client satisfaction is his obsession. Amazon’s mission is to optimize the customer experience. Bezos suggests you "should start with the customer and work backward". Most companies do the opposite – they start with the product or service and then work towards the customer. In every Amazon internal meeting, there is the rule of one empty chair. If there are five Amazonians in the meeting, there need to be six chairs. Whom/who does this chair represent? It represents the customer. Bezos does not want decisions to be made without taking the customer into account. If you start a business, and you believe in the business with all your heart, mind and soul, go all in. Commit to it and believe you will succeed. This belief, commitment, and drive will act as a risk management tool. So how do we unpack this? If getting a job is the worst long-term financial strategy, why doesn't everyone just stomp into their boss's offices, plonk down their resignation letters and follow their passions? That would be foolish and irresponsible, especially if you have financial dependents. The journey to financial freedom is exactly that – a journey. It is a process that requires an immense amount of work, effort, and courage. It requires self-belief, determination, discipline, commitment, and a long-term road map. It does not require you to be a genius but it does require you to be curious and open-minded. Albert Einstein said "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious". The fact that young Albert boasted an IQ of 160 did not hurt, but winning the cerebral lottery is not a requirement for financial freedom. Life is not a game of poker where you either fold or go all-in. There are fifty shades of grey. You may love your job but hate your employer. You may be a financial adviser in a large brokerage house. Test the waters to see if some of your largest clients would move with you if you decided to jump ship. Set up a side gig as a prelude to making the jump. In 2017, CNN reported that 44 million Americans have a side gig they run in parallel with their full-time job. Perhaps you have a good nose for real estate. Instead of ploughing your savings into a money market account, acquire a couple of high-quality apartments and rent them out. Start to develop a stream of income that is independent of your formal employment and see how it pans out. #finance #money #business #investing #investment #entrepreneur #financialfreedom #success #stocks #wealth #trading #realestate #stockmarket #invest #motivation #forex #bitcoin #investor #accounting #cryptocurrency #marketing #wallstreet #startup #trader #personalfinance #entrepreneurship #credit #smallbusiness #goals

But a new generation is on the rise and the first step to communicating with them, is understanding they aren't just another Millennial. Pamela La Gioia, - The Ultimate Guide to Making Money in College I am a generation X, born between 1965 and 1980.  No one really cares about us. We are neatly sandwiched between the baby boomers and the millennials. The boomers were a product of the post-war spike in libido and were strongly influenced by the counterculture and revolution in the social norms of the 1960s -  Beatlemania, Twiggy, JFK assassination, Woodstock, Cassius Clay, the Cuban missile crisis, a man on the moon, Vietnam and Jim Morrison.  Time named the Baby Boom Generation as its 1966 "Man of the Year". How could we compete with that?  Time, on the other hand, referred to us as the "unsung generation, hardly recognized as a social force or even noticed much at all". There is, however,  another generation that not many people are talking about. They are laying the groundwork to change the world forever. This is the generation born between 1995 and 2015.  Generation Z is the offspring of generation X. Companies would be well advised to get inside the minds of these young devils. You would be wrong to think generation Z is simply an extension of the millennials. If your business strategy is predicated on this assumption, you are heading for a massacre. It would be like sending the three musketeers back in time with rocket launchers to fight Hannibal and his herd of pachyderms. In this case, the generation Z are the musketeers and the misguided corporations are Hannibal and the pachys. To better understand generation Z, do not look at their older millennial siblings.  You need to look at their parents. This is our time to shine. The time has come for Generation Xs to grab that pair of red underpants, thrust them over their slim fit jeans, tattoo a red S on their chests, and swoop down to save humanity. We can give you a good insight into this new generation. The first step is to understand what shaped generation X. We are products of the stress and turmoil of the seventies and the eighties. We had Nixon leopard crawling down a government passage with a flashlight between his dentures, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, assassination of Indira Gandhi, Chernobyl, the Challenger explosion, the launch of Fox television, and the Exxon Valdez oil tanker belching 240,000 barrels of oil into the ocean. Socially, the 1970s saw a spike in divorce rates. The confluence of all these factors created a cynical, pessimistic and hardnosed generation. This has had a profound impact on our kids. Ten Things You MUST Understand about Generation Z Thing 1: College is Compulsory We Xs lived through the elimination of high paying blue-collar jobs in the 1980s, the stock market crash of 1987,  the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the Russian financial crisis of 1998,  the dot.com crisis of 2000, the great recession of 2008, and the coronavirus in 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average Index came into existence in the mid-1880s – back when Bernie Sanders was in high school. In the 100 years to 1980, the index moved from 40 to 800. It gradually trucked higher in a straight line. Over this period the market was as exciting as kissing your hairy aunt Mavis. In the 1980s, all hell broke loose and we entered into a new phase of wild swings and volatility. We went from kissing our aunts to jumping into a Jacuzzi with an epileptic Edward Scissorhands and French kissing an Alaskan walrus. In the 40 years to February 2020, the Dow moved from 800 points to 29,200 points and this did not happen in a straight line. Over this period, the market corrected 37 times (a correction is defined as a decline of more than 10 percent). In March 2020, the Dow lost 10,000 points on the back of the coronavirus pandemic. This volatility has made us jumpier than a heroin addict who has just pawned his last kitchen appliance. Generation Xs have inculcated in their kids the need to stay away from drugs, stay in school, go to college and open a 401K. According to Pew research, generation Zs are on track to be the best-educated generation ever, and this is largely thanks to all the paranoia and anxiety that has been passed down from their parents. Thing 2: Tougher than a Goats Knee Millennials are wimps. You give them the evil or stink eye and they burst into tears. The Zs have skins thicker than sperm whales because they learned from the best. We Xs tough things out – we power through. So what if your boss is a verbally abusive and is sexually aroused by cats dressed in fishnet stockings.  Generation Xs will ride him out in the same way that a cowboy rides out a steroid injected rodeo bull. Eventually, the frenzy of hooves, horns, and hormones die down into a quiet whimper. Millennials give up on their jobs too easily. Unless they feel personally and financially fulfilled in the first minutes weeks of their new job, they log onto LinkedIn looking for greener pastures.  The Zs don't need the same affirmations. There is no need to remind them they are champions every time you meet at the urinal. Thing 3: They Know their way Around a 12C Calculator Millennials are a nightmare in front of a financial calculator. A 2015 PWC survey showed that only 24 percent of millennials have basic financial knowledge and only 27 percent seek financial advice on saving and investing. In the history of mankind, there were village idiots in the middle Ages that were more financially literate.  The Zs, on the other hand, are displaying more sly and cunning on the financial side. They are more financially literate at a much younger age than previous generations. This is thanks largely to the financial anxiety that we Xs have passed down. The Zs are also more likely than millennials to save a good chunk of their change. They are more likely to use budgeting apps like Mint and Acorns. They also stay out of debt. They would rather rent assets than buy them. Thing 4: Not as Wild as the Millennials This same financial discipline and austerity are manifested in their social activities. The Zs are not a wild bunch. You will not find them passed out on the couch at Keith Richard's annual vodka and anthrax party.  Bryan Gildenberg, the chief knowledge officer at Kantar Consulting, says that Generation Z is a "very old group of young people." They drink less, take fewer drugs (except for pot, which they don't view as harmful) and have less sex. Again, there are parallels here with their Generation X parents, many of whom saw sex and drugs as dangerous due to the AIDS epidemic and Mrs Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign. The wildness of the millennials is explained in part by their hippie upbringing from their baby boomer parents. The boomers wanted it to be easier for their kids and they succeeded.  They spoiled the little buggers and created a strong sense of entitlement in them. The Xs have tried to raise a different type of kid – that appreciates the genius of U2, the Cure, Pearl Jam and Nirvana; and instilled in them a solid protestant work ethic and spirit of capitalism (Mr. Weber – your royalty check is in the mail). Thing 5: Eternal Entrepreneurial Flame For all their caution, the Zs do have an entrepreneurial streak, but this may be more due to necessity than to an inherent flame that burns within their chests. Technology is replacing humans and formal job creation is on the decline. Nearly three out of four high school students say they want to start their own business someday, according to Millennial Branding, a research and consulting firm. This, in turn, could help the Zs become the most financially free generation ever. Thing 6: Pass the Rhubarb Leaves The Zs are cutting meat out of their diets and piling up on the greens and veggies. They are more than twice as likely to classify themselves as vegetarians, vegans or pescatarians than their Gen X or Boomer parents, according to a survey by Bloomberg News and Morning Consult.  Even the less restrictive are cutting back: twenty-six percent said last year they are trying to eat less animal protein, more than both millennials (22 percent) and the nationwide average (19 percent), according to market research company Mintel.  This trend is being born out in the menu of universities and colleges. Foodservice professionals are experimenting with tofu, lentils, kale, and chickpeas – yummy. Thing 7: Frugality is their Religion Consumer businesses will need to coax the generations Zs into spending. They would be well-advised not to make any sudden movements and they need to use the correct vocabulary.   Music to the ears of the Zs are words like "value for money", "responsibility" and "sustainability". Cartier owner Richemont introduced Baume, an affordable sub-brand of watches that focuses on using recycled materials to make timepieces customized to the purchaser's taste and sold online. The Zs are not just looking at the product, they are also looking at the company that stands behind the product. They are asking the following questions: Are they really delivering value to society? Are they transparent? Are they promoting diversity and inclusion? Thing 8: They Love Second Hand If I was an apparel maker with an ounce of self-awareness, I would be more nervous than a New Zealand sheep after the All Blacks have just won the World Cup rugby final.  Frugal Zs are attracted to sustainability. That’s one reason startups focused on resale and sharing services have hit pay dirt. Japan’s Mercari Inc., a flea market app connecting consumers to sellers of used items, has 11 million active users, half of them in their teens and 20s, according to a 2018 survey. The Zs are starting to recycle clothing. They are not going to 5th Avenue and buying a Lacoste sleeveless polo for $100. They are going to Thredup.com and buying it second hand for 25 bucks. In the U.S., one in three Gen Z consumers will buy used clothing this year, compared with one in five boomers or Gen X consumers, according to a report from fashion resale company Thredup. Secondhand apparel is on track to become bigger than fast fashion within a decade, it said. Car companies are also scrambling around trying to understand the Zs.  Detroit is doing a crap job in connecting with the new generations – any of the Kardashian "women" would have done a better job as high school woodshop teachers.   They stalled on millennials, rolling out gas-sipping subcompacts earlier this decade just as fuel prices plunged and SUVs became the wheels of choice. Now they are switching gears again. They are exiting the sedan market and putting all their chips on high-profit SUVs and trucks. This is at a time when cash-strapped Zs are showing a preference for compact cars. In defense of the automakers, connecting with the Zs is not easy. If one had to liken it to Olympic diving, it would have the same degree of difficulty as a reverse backward triple summersault in the pretzel position after a couple of nasty tucks from the Russian mafia the night before. In the same way that Zs are buying used clothes, if they do decide to buy a car in a moment of weakness, they are going for used compacts and mid-size sedans.  My bet is that the Zs never even enter the new car market and rely on shared services. Automakers are living in a state of denial. They are holding onto the antiquated belief that there is still exists a love of owning a car. There is no love in owning a car – there is love in driving a car. Car ownership opens your life to a world of complications – pushy car salespeople, rapid devaluation, hidden fees and costs, insurance, taxes, gasoline, maintenance, repairs, fines, and parking. In a world where there is a plethora of renting and sharing options, who in their right mind would you want to buy? I am not saying that you avoid all these complications when you rent or share.  You only pay for the time you use the car and not when it is gathering dust in the garage. The Zs are going to convert many automakers from prize show animals into a lily-livered one-eyed prairie dog foraging through McDonald's garbage at midnight. Thing 9: Kings of Pot Pot is going mainstream. California legalized pot at the same time the first batch of the Zs were rolled out of the operating room swaddled in a blue or pink blanket. For them, pot is as normal as same-day delivery and smartphones. Pretty soon, those young retractable thumbs are going to be rolling joints with the same ease as the boomers unclipped brassieres at Woodstock.  It is always hard to generalize about an entire age group, but early signs suggest it will be a generation of marijuana consumers, embracing legal pot to kick back and treat ailments like anxiety, insomnia, and erectile dysfunction. Not only the Zs will be puffing the magic dragon. Arthritic boomers, anxious Xs, and entitled millennials will also be partaking in the wonderful weed. Hell, even the silent generation might drop a couple of drops onto their tongues to take the edge off before jumping into bed next to their snoring partners. The usage rate of pot could eventually be similar to alcohol. Thing 10: They Don't Care about Brands and Labels The Zs don't care much about brands, or labels or corporations. They are ethnically diverse, socially tolerant, globally-connected and environmentally aware. One nickname for the Zs is  "philanthroteens". They don't make much use of e-mail or Facebook. They prefer Instagram and YouTube. They are into thrift-shopping and internet influencers. They sure as hell do not watch advertising on television. They prefer word-of-mouth (preferably through meme or post or video) when it comes to enlightenment about what to buy. What's better than learning about a product or service than through a friend? #finance #money #business #investing #investment #entrepreneur #financialfreedom #success #stocks #wealth #trading #realestate #stockmarket #invest #motivation #forex #bitcoin #investor #accounting #cryptocurrency #marketing #wallstreet #startup #trader #personalfinance #entrepreneurship #credit #smallbusiness #goals

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those that cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn. Alvin Toffler Maximilien Robespierre, before his head was separated from his body by the guillotine in the French Revolution, said: "The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant". The world is financially ignorant and the tyrants are exploiting this ignorance. The financial industry does not want you to be free. Just like the medical establishment wants to keep you ill and coming back for treatment, the financial system wants you to consume like an imbecile. Through marketing and advertising, it sells you an almost unattainable lifestyle that if you reach, you simply become another one of greed`s whore. It is never enough. Banks want to keep you ignorant and coming back to buy their products. They say they want to educate you but nothing could be further from the truth. They want to sell you their rancid products with a new shiny wrap. They want to skrew you again and again, and you get to smile while they`re doing it. According to a 2015 Standard & Poor's Global Financial Literacy Survey, only 33 percent of adults worldwide are financially literate. The bar on this survey was not set high. Respondents were not asked to build complex econometric models or use Markowitz to find the efficient frontier on an investment portfolio.  Simple questions about inflation, compound interest and diversification were asked. The notable laggard in the survey was a rising economic power. China's citizens recorded an abysmal financial literacy score of 28 percent. Moreover, literacy scores were not going up. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc.'s Investor Education Foundation's 2016 report found that 37 percent of individuals correctly answered four out of five financial questions. This was below the 42 percent reported in 2009.  Humans are getting financially dumber, not smarter. Financially speaking, they are becoming more inbred than a redneck at a Trump rally.  They have parked their seventy-four wheel mobile home, moved the livingroom furniture onto the front porch and eased into a lifestyle of beer-swigging, finger pulling, tobacco chewing, and weasel hunting. Low levels of literacy are alarming as governments incentivize banks to make financial services available to a wider audience. Moreover, in the last 30 years, the retirement savings landscape has shifted. Decision-making responsibilities have been transferred to financially illiterate participants who previously relied on their employers or governments for financial security and guidance after retirement. One question that vexes me is why the formal education system has never focused on financial literacy? At school, I was rewarded for translating Livy’s report of the First Punic War from Latin to English and memorizing the difference between igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks.  Education methods have not evolved in over a hundred years when schools were created as receptacles of information. Teachers stand in front of the class dressed in their tweed jackets and comfortable loafers.  They orally transfer their knowledge into the heads of their devoted scribes. Standardized testing is then used to assess short-term knowledge retention of subjects that are useless in the real world. School boards control the narrative and ensure that no renegade teachers break rank from the program. The 1989 movie "Dead Poets Society" portrays the impact of a free-spirited teacher who tries to encourage his students to think, feel and seize the day. The movie ends tragically. This education system is engineered to produce uncreative and loyal employees, not free-thinking entrepreneurs.  As in most systems, however, imperfections exist. A minority fringe exit the system before graduating with their entrepreneurial fire unextinguished. Some spend their lives checking in and out of rehab, while others set up multi-billion dollar companies. The latter list includes Steve Jobs of Apple, Bill Gates of Microsoft and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. They succeed in business not because of formal education but in spite of it.  The architects of the system need these drop-outs, the one percent world, to perpetuate a system in which a handful of crusading pioneers employ the institutionally educated masses. Corporations are not oblivious to the limitations of formal education. In 2018, job-search site Glassdoor compiled a list of top employers who no longer required applicants to have a college degree. The list included Google, Apple and IBM. In 2017, IBM’s vice president of talent, Joanna Daley told CNBC that 15 percent of their U.S. company hires do not have a four-year degree. The message from these companies is that some traditional college degrees are emptier than a eunuchs boxer shorts.  They do not equip graduates with the requisite skills to operate in their world. So what is financial literacy and what does it take to become financially educated? According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, it is the ability to understand the basic principles of business and finance. This is as useful as advising a death-row inmate to reduce his dietary intake of trans-unsaturated fatty acids. My definition is different. To be financially literate, and to use this literacy to achieve financial freedom, you need to do two things. Thing 1: Unlearn EVERYTHING you know about Money and Finance Robert Kiyosaki, the financial freedom pioneer, in his book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, says that from an early age we are taught to go to school, get a safe job, save money, live below your means, buy a house, get out of debt and invest for the long term in a well-diversified portfolio. These precepts are the biggest load of bull since Joseph Goebbels launched his massive campaign that Germans were the superior race. These lies cause financial bondage. The only way to free yourself is rebellion.  When I joined the derivatives trading desk at a large European bank in 1997, I asked a colleague for advice on how to trade options. He told me to take my gut instinct, and do exactly the opposite. Financial freedom requires this same "contrarianism". Thing 2: Dominate FIVE Key Disciplines The pentathlon was one of the original sports in the ancient Olympic Games. Five sports were contested over one day:  long jump, javelin, discus, a foot race and a wrestling match. The pentathlete was the most complete and skilled athlete at the games. Their training formed part of the military. The ability to run and hurl yourself into a pit of sand and wrestle your enemy armed with a sharp object and a disk superseded all other abilities.  To attain financial freedom, the five disciplines you need to dominate are less physically demanding. They are investments, tax, accounting, business law, and selling. Exercise Go out and buy a leather-bound journal. The first step in the journey to financial freedom is to describe the most important relationship in your life. It is your relationship with money.  According to the American Psychological Association (APA), money is the top cause of stress in the United States. I want you to answer the following: 1)​What does money mean to you? a.​Is it a goal in itself or a means to something else? b.​Do you believe that it will make you happy? c.​Is it a measure of your self-worth? 2)​How do you see rich people? a.​Do you aspire to be like them? b.​Are you envious of their success? 3)​What is your happiest money memory? 4)​How important was money in your family? 5)​Are you a saver or a spender? 6)​Do you feel guilty when you buy an item of luxury?

Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors in the history of the world, was asked for the secret to a long-lasting marriage, and he said “low expectations”. There is infinite wisdom in this comment – but I would like to modify this slightly. If you are looking for the secret to long-lasting business, personal, romantic, and social relationships, you should have ZERO expectations in others. Here are FIVE reasons you want to lower your expectations in others and get them as close to zero as possible. 1) Expectations Breed Entitlement If you have ever found yourself thinking or saying: "I deserve/expect x", then “Houston, we have a big fucking problem". You are entitled to NOTHING! You deserve nothing. You should expect absolutely nothing because until you take full responsibility for your decisions and actions, you will always be a passive victim and you will never achieve anything in life. 2) Expectations Don’t Differentiate between “Wants” and “Should” If you are full of expectations, it is difficult to differentiate between what you want to do and what you should do. Freedom is the ability to do the things that you want to do. Slavery is doing the things that you think you should do. One of the biggest reasons why my second marriage failed is because I did things I thought I was expected to do and was then supremely pissed off when my ex-wife did not show any gratitude for the things I was doing. The animosity grew until it exploded. If I had been wise enough to ratchet my expectations down to zero and do the things that I wanted to do (within reason – because you cannot be a completely selfish prick when you are married), I probably would still be unhappily married. 3) Expectations are Often Unrealistic Let me give you a quick list of expectations that many people unwittingly have tattooed onto their subconscious: 1) opportunities should fall into my lap, 2) people should like me, 3) people know what I am trying to say, 4) things will make me happy, and 5) I can change him/her. All these expectations are horribly false and will systematically ruin your life. Let us address each of these unrealistic expectations: 1) you need to work hard and create opportunities, 2) some people will think you are a dickhead (who cares), 3) people are clueless as to what you are trying to say (you need to make more effort to make yourself understood), 4) things will make you fucking miserable, and 5) no, there is no way you are going to be able to mold the person into who you want (accept them for who they are and move forward). 4) Expectations Lead to Resentment You are in the subway heading off to work on the Monday after New Year's Eve. You are tired and hungover and feel like a zombie. You find a seat, set your Spotify to adult contemporary music, and then an old lady walks in. You do the gentlemanly thing and offer her your seat. She takes the offer but doesn’t say thank you. You immediately think she is an ungrateful cow and hope she swallows her false teeth. For the next 10 minutes, your resentment grows, your body fills with cortisone, and you die before the train reaches your stop. If only you had read this blog and realized the importance of having no expectations, you would have been happy in your cubicle, doing your bullshit job, writing that useless report that no one was going to read, and everyone lives happily ever after! 5) Expectations are Very Subjective If you think expectations are truths, you are in for a very disappointing life. Expected behavior in situations differs wildly from person to person. What one person expects may be far from what another person expects. When I moved to Mexico City, I realized that business meetings run on a different agenda when compared to London and South Africa. In the latter two places, introductions are swift, and you jump straight onto business. In Mexico, the first 10 minutes are filled with small talk about what is happening in the city, country, or world. The next ten minutes is personal small talk – talking about family, friends, lovers, and golfing buddies. Then, and only then, do you jump into the filthy part of talking business? This drove me nuts - I am impatient, time is money and I don’t care about the fucking weather. I had to ratchet my expectations to zero, and only then was I able to thrive. . You need to execute a mass transferal of expectations that you have placed in other people and invest them in yourself. Instead of expecting other people to do things for you, concentrate all that responsibility on yourself and take ownership of your outcomes. Stop being a passenger, jump into the driver’s seat, and hit the gas. Stop being passive and be active – get shit done. Instead of sitting behind a screen and watching YouTube videos, and expecting success to miraculously fall out of the fucking sky, get out the front door and start executing your plans. We are living in a world of expectations and entitlement and privilege. This is creating a world of soft, lazy, and unsuccessful losers. My advice is to get off your fat entitled asses and start doing some honest work. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business