Why the rich stay rich

A fellow walked into a bank in New York City asking for a loan for $4000 dollars. “Well, before we lend you the money we are going to need some kind of security” the bank teller said. “No problem” the man responded here are the keys to my car “you’ll see it, it’s a black Porsche parked in the back of the parking lot.” 

A few weeks later the man returned to pay off his loan. While he was paying it up, along with the interest of $11 dollars, the manager came over, “sir, we are very happy to have you’re business, but if you don’t mind me asking, after you left we looked into you and found out that you are a millionaire, why would you need to borrow $4000 dollars?” 

“Well, the fellow responded it’s quite simple, where else can I park my car for three weeks in New York for $11 dollars?”

Life goes on....

Even after the thrill of living is gone John Mellencamp

Over the past few weeks, I seem to have surrounded myself with people who seem to have lost the thrill of living and are just moving through life. This happens from time to time--as we move through life we create a circle of friends and acquaintances of about 200 people. These people help us keep with the paradigms we have created for ourselves to make living easier.

But from time to time, people creep into our circle without our realizing they are becoming a greater part of our life then they should. For some people life is routine, the joy of living is not part of their routine, but they like to be around people who find joy in life, living and other people. What they do however is suck the energy out of the people who find joy and soon the joyful person is caught in a downward spin, and without great determination will lose their joy of living. I wonder when did these people lose the thrill of living go? I watch my grandson, and my nieces and great nephews, and the thrill of living is alive and thriving in them. I watched Jackie Evancho on PBS and saw a great singer, but also a twelve year old girl, who appeared to be excited about what she was doing. 

When do we lose the thrill of living and life goes on, when do we settle and not become excited about what life means? When do we forget the wonders of the universe and  the beauty of life around us? 

Maybe retirement is a time to recapture the joy and thrill of living rather than settling for what we have had to put up with when we were working to raise a family and make our mark on the world. I know that over the next few weeks, I will be moving the people who have lost the joy of living out of my inner circle, I will do it in a positive way and will move back to finding the joy in life. I  wonder at the joy the small things in life bring me, the sunlight touching the frost on the window, the cat playing with the ball  of string, hearing a bird singing as we wake up, seeing the smile on a young persons face as they delight in the music in the are. These and other small things are amazing reminders of how wonderful life can be for us.

The mark we leave on the world, will not be about our successes in business, but our mark will be with the people that we touch and bring joy and happiness to in our everyday interactions.

Life goes on, keep the thrill of living with you as we pass through the time we are given and be thankful everyday for the opportunities life has given us to bring joy to others and ourselves.

40% of world's wealth owned by 1% of population

Two "old" news story that says we may yet learn from history. CBC News on Tuesday, December 5, 2006, published this article.

In 2011, the 1% movement began in Vancouver. Concidence or another Canadian movement taking the world by storm. So this is interesting given that we are just paying our taxes for another year.

The richest one per cent of the world's population owns 40 per cent of the total household wealth, while the bottom half of the world makes do with barely one per cent, according to a research report released Tuesday.

The study, which further underlined the continuing disparity between rich and poor, is by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research, part of the United Nations University.

'Income inequality has been rising for the past 20 to 25 years and we think that is true for inequality in the distribution of wealth.'-Canadian economist James Davies, an author of the report

It took more than $500,000 US to be among the richest one per cent of adults in the world, according to the report. The richest 10 per cent of adults needed $61,000 US in assets.

In contrast, 50 per cent of adults owned barely one per cent of the household wealth. Wealth was defined as the value of physical and financial assets minus debts. The study differentiates between wealth and income. The authors note that "many people in high-income countries — somewhat paradoxically — are among the poorest people in the world in terms of household wealth" because they have large debts.

The bulk of the wealthiest adults (almost 90 per cent) are concentrated in North America, Europe and Japan, the researchers said. For example, North America accounts for only six per cent of adults, but held 34 per cent of the globe's household wealth.

"Income inequality has been rising for the past 20 to 25 years, and we think that is true for inequality in the distribution of wealth," said James Davies, one of the report's authors and a professor of economics at the University of Western Ontario in London.

"There is a whole group of problems in developing countries that make it difficult for people to build up assets, which are important, since life is so precarious," Davies said.

Having assets worth just above $2,200 US would be enough to put an adult into the top half of the world's wealth distribution.

Canadians averaged $70,916 US in assets

Canada's net worth per capita came in at $70,916 US, putting it just ahead of Denmark.

Average net worth in the United States amounted to $143,867 per person in 2000, while it reached $180,837 in Japan.

At the bottom end of the scale were Ethiopia with per-capita wealth of $193 and Congo at $180.

Global household wealth amounted to $125 trillion in 2000, roughly three times the value of total global production, or $20,500 per person.  For more information on this story check out:

The World Distribution of Household Wealth

The second "old" news story is about Canada's super-rich, Last Updated March 6, 2008

If it's true that "money talks," then the bank accounts of Canada's wealthiest citizens are doing a lot of blabbing these days.

First, let's define wealthy. Are millionaires automatically wealthy? At one time, a million really meant something. But then real estate values started exploding and stock markets began soaring, and before you could say "über-rich," the ranks of Canadian millionaires began to swell.

Consultants Cap Gemini Ernst & Young estimated there were 315,000 millionaires in Canada at the start of 2001. In that survey, "millionaire" meant $1 million in investable assets, excluding real estate. The consulting firm forecast that the number of Canadian millionaires would grow to 900,000 by the year 2010.

The world's richest	(billions of U.S. dollars)
1. Warren Buffet (investments)	62.0
2. Carlos Slim Helu (telecom)	60.0
3. Bill Gates (Microsoft)	58.0
4. Lakshmi Mittal (steel)	45.0
5. Mukesh Ambani (petrochemicals)	43.0
6. Anil Ambani (diversified)	42.0
7. Ingvar Kamprad + family (Ikea)	31.0
8. KP Singh (real estate)	30.0
9. Oleg Deripaska (aluminum)	28.0
10. Karl Albrecht (retailing)	27.0
Source: Forbes (March 2008)

Impressive numbers. But super-rich? In most cases, they aren't even close. No, we're talking about the tiny sliver at the very top of the money pile — the ultra-high net worth club whose members are referred to as billionaires.

Canada has 2 per cent of world's billionaires

Financial publications, which love to track the rise and fall of the super-rich, agree that the money gods have been especially generous towards this small but affluent group.

In its annual tracking of billionaires, Forbes magazine's writers and researchers declared that 25 Canadians had cracked the billionaire threshold by early 2008 (in U.S. dollars, too).

That's 25 out of 1,125 billionaires worldwide. The world's billionaires had a total net worth of $4.4 trillion US. That's more than Germany's GDP. Remember, we're talking about just 1,125 people here. Canada's share of the billionaire booty: $88.4 billion US.

Canadian Business magazine does its own annual tracking of the richest 100 Canadians. The two lists agree that the richest of the rich Canadians are the members of the Thomson family. Forbes says number two is grocery magnate Galen Weston and his family, and the Irving clan from New Brunswick is third. But Canadian Business magazine says recent rises in the value of Rogers Communications shares have vaulted Ted Rogers Jr. into second place, with a net worth of $7.6 billion.

The Thomson family's wealth simply boggles. Canadian Business pegs the Thomson fortune at $25.4 billion. Forbes magazine put it at $18.9 billion US in February 2008 - good enough for 31st place in the world. That's only $43.1 billion US behind Warren Buffett. (Net worth: $62 billion US, depending on the value of Berkshire Hathaway shares).

Money made in everything from food to circus

What can we say about Canada's billionaires? Well, they're a mixed bag. Some come from very old money; some are very new — like the co-CEOs of Research in Motion. Most of them still live in Canada. Most are in their later years, but seven are in their 40s, and steel baron Alexander Shnaider is just 39.

On the Forbes list, the Canadian billionaires are all male. But Canadian Business singles out Indigo Books & Music CEO Heather Reisman. Together with her husband, Onex Corp.'s Gerry Schwartz, the power couple is worth $1.57 billion.

Canada's richest	(billions of Cdn dollars)
1. The Thomson family (media)	$25.4
2. Ted Rogers Jr. (media)	$7.6
3. Galen Weston (groceries)	$7.3
4. Paul Desmarais Sr. (Power Corp.)	$5.6
5. Irving family (diversified)	$5.3
6. Jimmy Pattison (diversified)	$4.52
7.Jeff Skoll (eBay)	$4.48
8. Mike Lazaridis (RIM)	$4.36
9. Jim Balsillie (RIM)	$4.09
10. Barry Sherman (Apotex)	$3.61
Source: Canadian Business (Dec. 2007)

They hail from all regions of the country. Some are big-money families; others are bachelors. And they made their money in vastly different ways. Drugs (the legal kind), media, oil and gas, food retailing, printing, money management, construction, the BlackBerry and the circus.

But the roots of some fortunes may surprise. John MacBain's fortune came one classified ad a time. MacBain is the controlling interest behind Trader Classified Media, which publishes many Auto Trader titles and hundreds of other similar publications around the world. He began it all with the purchase of Auto Hebdo in 1987. Net worth: $1.24 billion, according to Canadian Business.

Then there's Guy Laliberté. You may not have heard of Guy. But you've heard of his company. Back in 1984, it was just Laliberté and a group of street performers in Quebec. Now it's 10 dazzling companies of acrobats and artists showcasing their talents around the world. The collective name for the enterprise that Laliberté now owns: Cirque du Soleil. His almost total ownership has given him a net worth of $1.18 billion, Canadian Business says. Forbes puts his net worth even higher, at $1.7 billion US.

A final note about all this talk of money. Unlike fictional billionaires like Scrooge McDuck, the super-rich do not keep most of their fortune in cash. Their money is usually tied up in shares of the companies they started, so their fortunes rise and fall with the market. How well Canada's billionaires fare in the years to come may depend more on investor sentiment than their own business acumen. Not that this crowd is terribly short on that.

That doesn't mean that the rich don't have things to worry about. A survey by Sensus Research of 165 Canadians worth more than $10 million showed that almost a quarter are worried that lazy children or grandchildren will squander the family fortune. About a third of them worry they won't be able to maintain their lifestyle.

It's a tough world out there.

Sources: Canadian Business, Forbes, B.C. Securities Commission, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Sensus Research

Changing is not easy

Changing what you have,  comes from changing who you are. And changing who you are comes from changing what and how you think.

Michal Fortin in one of his posts says "I did so in an attempt to try to find the one common denominator in all religions, in all cultures, in all societies. Some people say it’s love. That may be true, but what I have found is, in almost all cases, the common denominator has been “You are what you think"

Masaru Emoto discovered that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward them. He found that water from clear springs and water that has been exposed to loving words shows brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake patterns. The implications of this research creates a new awareness of how we can positively impact the earth and our personal health. We can do this by changing our thought patterns.
 
So how do we change what we think? (Rhetorical Question) I believe we change because we become exposed to new ideas, some that reaffirm our paradigm and others that question the paradigm of our world.
 
Education, travel, reading, and listening to others all expose us to new ideas. If we have an open mind, then we begin slowly to change our thinking and if we change our thinking then perhaps we can change who we are or who we will become.

If  as Masaru Emota claims we can change the shape of water  as it crystallizes by exposing it to different thoughts then I think it stands to reason that perhasps we change ourselves by our thoughts?
 
Something to think about.

Boomers and protest

I always wondered why Dentists and Dental Hygienists talk to you when your mouth is full. The last time I  went forf my checkup, the process was easy and the Dental Hygienist (she) talked about the Olympics, the tolling of the Fraser River crossings and the new Port Mann Bridge. Interesting how some people need to walk a fine line about expressing their opinion and not seeming to be politically on one side or the other.

I watched part of an MSNBC special on Baby Boomers and thought, the media is finally catching on that this generation is reaching a stage in life that requires a focus on health care and issues around this our concern for good continuing Health Cazre. The special dealt with the American situation and their problems with Health Care. In Canada, we have issues with Pension reform. The neo-conservative governments in BC and Ottawa are still strong believes in the trickle down theory of Economics that did not work in the 80's and will not work today. The government in BC used its political majority to force closure on the debate of the HST and then lost a vote to keep the tax.

Boomers who are retired and who are trying to save for retirement are  two groups that were hurt by this tax. Boomers learned how to protest in the 60's against perceived or real injustices and as the governments fiddle around with not moving fast enough on pension reform and putting in place consumption taxes, the Boomers are starting to reawaken their skill sets on how to protest.

The next few years will be very interesting in the world of politics if the politicians don't understand that Boomers have all of the power and have had for the last 65 years. We are a force that shapes society now and our needs are those that need to be paid attention to and those who don't understand this will loose their power. The Harper government has started to launch an attack on Health Care and Pensions, I wonder if the Boomers will buy the arguement about the tax shift from corporations to citizens when they see the reduction in services and in pensions that will soon be here.

Life on the West Coast

I love these days, the wind is blowing the clouds away, the sun is shining but not warm. Suddenly everyone is running as hail comes out of nowhere. The hail turns to heavy rain, then the wind picks up again and just as suddenly as they appeared the rain, hail and clouds are gone. Spring on the west coast, energy flowing, life is good on the west coast. I read a wonderful post on one of the blogs I follow The Legislature Raids which is partly quoted below for the full post check out the blog:

The perfect explanation from an unexpected source: why we stand up for British Columbia


BC Mary comment: This is the best-ever explanation of what drives so many of us to protect one thing after another ... BC Rail ... BC Hydro ... BC rivers ... and so many issues that create the beautiful province we once knew. We owe great appreciation to Alexandra Morton who stuck to her one issue and has explained it so well, all along, but never so broadly as today's message ... "

My hope is that the Boomers will remember that we have to set the example and be the first to stand up and be counted.