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Exploring money: making and growing it, working, money philosophy, and money itself.

• Money is the root of all evil ...not!
• Financial Health
• Scrap

Money is the root of all evil ...not!

The biblical phrase "The love of money is the root of all evil." (1 Timothy 6:10) is so often abused that I want to handle that issue right now.

• Money is not evil. Money is no more evil than oxygen. Everyone uses it, including all sorts of churches and saintly people. Money is simply more efficient than bartering.
• The love of money is not the root of all evil. EG: Sue likes Pete better; therefore Joe kills Pete. That has nothing to do with the love of money. The quote simply sounds better than saying "The love of money is the cause of lots of evil."
• The love of money can inspire evil. It is certainly not right to go stealing money. There are legal ways of acquiring money that can be evaluated as good, neutral, or evil. Laws are made by people and must constantly be adapted to make ensure fairness.
• Money encourages a fair society. In an unfair society, you usually cannot acquire more money without stepping on other people. Why risk living in a society where people want to step on you? In a fair society you can acquire more money without making everyone else have less.
• Give and you shall receive; money makes money. The more money you spend [correctly], the more money you can make. The more money others have, the more money you can acquire from them. Thus it makes sense for the rich to be generous.

Financial Health

Financial health is so fundamental, that it is nearly criminal that all children are not taught it in school.

There are two factors that affect your financial health: your income level and your financial performance.

Your income level level defines whether you are lower, middle, or upper class. This is initially a matter of birth. You had no control over your point of origin.

Much more important than income level is your financial performance: 

• You are doing badly if your income (of any size) is less than your expenses.
• You are doing satisfactorily if your income (of any size) is equal to your expenses.
• You are doing well if your income (of any size) is occasionally greater than your expenses.
• You are doing very well if your income (of any size) is greater than your expenses on a regular basis.
• You are doing great if your income (of any size) is greater than your expenses on a regular basis while doing what you like.

Your performance is independent of your income level. EG: You could win the lottery or inherit lots of money but still have lousy performance. However if your performance is good, then your income level will automatically increase. If you want to get rich you must first increase your performance, then move up in income level.

There are all sorts of ideas on increasing financial performance. They all increase income and decrease expenses. I will try to expound on a few fundamental ideas.

Scrap

• The key thing to understand about finances is that your revenue must exceed your expenses.
• Consider: 3 bottom lines: Profit, People, Planet.
• Making people smile, think, feel, live, etc. is worthy work.
• A 9/80 work week. Employees work a total of 80 hours during nine days over a two week period and get every other Friday off. Employees love the three-day weekends. There are two different schedules with 9/80, so someone is always working within the department each Friday.
• Consider:

  {
  	A parent may leave his children assets but not liabilities.
  	One generation should not make the next pay for their debts.
  	SS is bad.
  }
   v
  {
  	Children should take care of their parents when the parents get old.
  	Just as the first generation helped the next, the next should help the previous.
  	SS is good.
  }

• In case you ever lose your wallet, make sure you have a hard copy of all your ID numbers and credit card numbers and the numbers to call for each card.
  • Social Security Administration (fraud line): 1-800-269-0271
• Half the world lives under $2 a day
• To get VC (Venture Capital):
  • A plan & budget projections
  • A team
  • A few customers
  • Legal offering wrapper
  • A raiser (connects to VC)
• Mega Nationals & Fringes. Globalization does not mean the loss of culture or individuality.

  Mega National	Population (millions)	GDP (trillions US$)	GDP per Capita (US$)	Literacy	Nukes	Notes (Ref: NationalGeographic.com 2002-02)
  China	1,254		3,460	82%	yes	Newly converted to free market.
  European Union	380	7.8				Member countries have open borders and common unit of money. 857 billion US$ exported, 938 billion US$ imported.
  India	987		1,600	52%	yes	English speaking. Nuclear missiles.
  United States	271	9.9	30,200	97%	yes	The only real super power for now.

• Marketing
  • "Marketing is the process of creating a Product (or service) line and then planning and carrying out the Pricing, Promotion, and Placement (or distribution) of the product to stimulate buying exchanges in which both seller and buyer profit in some way, while keeping in mind the People (customers, competitors, employees, and suppliers) who influence and are influenced by the process." -Sarah White. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Marketing. Indianapolis, IN: Alpha Books, 2003. ISBN: 1-59257-135-2. A paraphrasing of her definition of marketing.
  • "Marketing is a four step process that begins with analyzing and defining a qualified universe of potential users or buyers. After this first phase in the marketing process, a true marketing effort succeeds in capturing the attention of the intended buyers within the targeted universe. Third, systematic effort must be put into getting the prospects to accept the concepts or propositions being offered via the marketing effort. Finally, with all three of the previous steps achieved, the marketer must convert the prospective buyer into an actual buyer by getting them to take the desired action (purchase, rent, call, download, subscribe, refer, sell, follow the law, become a member, etc.)." -Brian Norris via Marketing [W].
• The European Union (EU) has standardized the sizes of enterprises: http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/enterprise_policy/sme_definition/index_en.htm
  • Extrapolating downward, following the geometric sizing:
    • X Micro Enterprises. Up to2 employees or 0.4e6 euros. Ye olde mom and pop shop!
  • EU enterprises:
    • Micro Enterprises. Up to 10 employees or 2e6 euros. Covers SoHos (small office/home offices).
    • Small Enterprises. Up to 50 employees or 10e6 euros.
    • Medium Enterprises. Up to 250 employees or 50e6 euros.
  • Extrapolating upward, following the geometric sizing:
    • Large Enterprises. Up to 1250 employees or 250e6 euros. Red Hat had 980 employees in 2005.
    • X Large Enterprises. Up to 6,250 employees or 1,250e6 euros. Google, Inc. had 5,680 employees in 2005.
    • XX Large Enterprises. Up to 31,250 employees or 6,250e6 euros. Apple Computer had 14,800 employees in 2005.
    • XXX Large Enterprises. Up to 156,250 employees or 31,250e6 euros. Microsoft had 63,564 employees in 2005.
    • XXXX Large Enterprises. Up to 78,1250 employees or 156,250e6 euros.

2007-10-24 17:01:40Z