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Man Built a $188M Fortune Investing in Stocks Then Donated It to Charity

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Re: Man Built a $188M Fortune Investing in Stocks Then Donated It to Charity

#31

Post by nemacol »

jsjsbdkj wrote: post #3

From the article: Most millionaires opt for stealth wealth. Their friends don’t know, their coworkers don’t know, their extended family doesn’t know. In a few cases, not even their children know! Wealth is accumulated through habits; at least in a free society like ours. At the moment, something like 1 out of 25 households falls into the millionaire category, most of it self-made. From the comments: Your right in Jac…

I keep trying to develop the habit of having wealthy parents but they keep being poor.

Also, those articles about getting rich keep telling me to utilize my assets to earn additional income but that is illegal in my state.

Please send help.

Re: Man Built a $188M Fortune Investing in Stocks Then Donated It to Charity

#32

Post by throwawayfire »

lostcolony wrote: post #25
woah wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still have $1 million dollars more than someone without a house

Which is helpful if they want to and are able to move to an area with lower real estate prices. Otherwise that 'wealth' is tied up in a good they are unable to sell (without incurring an implicit debt of either needing to find another house in the same high price area, or having to pay for rent in the same high price area). A house may be a reasonable investment vehicle; it can also be an extremely illiquid one.

If so, they still have $1 million more to spend on rent.

Re: Man Built a $188M Fortune Investing in Stocks Then Donated It to Charity

#33

Post by woko »

FactolSarin wrote: post #10
vmception wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well this is mostly semantics: the quote does not contradict, most of the wealth was self-made. as in the profits accumulated during their lifetime, it doesn't say anything about how the first one million or any amount was made. your consternation requires you to have a fixed and shared definition of self made that is just not described at all here. it does leave a glaring hole about then which wealth was not self-ma…

I mean, it takes money to make money. It's a lot easier to get a hundred million dollars when you start out with 1 million to put in the stock market.

One cannot transform 1 million into 100 millions without having 1 million in the first case (unless some debt leverage is used, but that is besides the point here). Right.

However, I fail to see how that removes any value (or makes the task look easy) regarding Mc Donald's perspective. For that one guy who transformed 1 million into 100 millions, how many actually lost most of their initial million (in stock trading)? I am like most of us here: I imagine that if I had a million somehow, then I could easily become a billionaire thanks to my wonderful intelligence and wits, because I am better than every other millionaire out there, right? That is all wishful thinking though, and I dread confronting reality to my ego.

In reality, if I had a million, I guess I would invest it into the most risk-free assets rather than bet it all in stock trading.

Re: Man Built a $188M Fortune Investing in Stocks Then Donated It to Charity

#34

Post by andreilys »

nemacol wrote: post #31
jsjsbdkj wrote: post #3

From the article: Most millionaires opt for stealth wealth. Their friends don’t know, their coworkers don’t know, their extended family doesn’t know. In a few cases, not even their children know! Wealth is accumulated through habits; at least in a free society like ours. At the moment, something like 1 out of 25 households falls into the millionaire category, most of it self-made. From the comments: Your right in Jac…

I keep trying to develop the habit of having wealthy parents but they keep being poor. Also, those articles about getting rich keep telling me to utilize my assets to earn additional income but that is illegal in my state. Please send help.

utilize my assets to earn additional income but that is illegal in my state

What state would make investing illegal?

Re: Man Built a $188M Fortune Investing in Stocks Then Donated It to Charity

#35

Post by omgwtfbbq »

vmception wrote: post #7
jsjsbdkj wrote: post #3

From the article: Most millionaires opt for stealth wealth. Their friends don’t know, their coworkers don’t know, their extended family doesn’t know. In a few cases, not even their children know! Wealth is accumulated through habits; at least in a free society like ours. At the moment, something like 1 out of 25 households falls into the millionaire category, most of it self-made. From the comments: Your right in Jac…

well this is mostly semantics: the quote does not contradict, most of the wealth was self-made. as in the profits accumulated during their lifetime, it doesn't say anything about how the first one million or any amount was made. your consternation requires you to have a fixed and shared definition of self made that is just not described at all here. it does leave a glaring hole about then which wealth was not self-ma…

>well this is mostly semantics: the quote does not contradict, most of the wealth was self-made.

Just for reference, and we don't know how much he really inherited, if he inherited $10M and put all of it into a SP500 index fund that earned 8% returns per year he would have $100M after only 30 years. This is with 0 additional capital invested, 0 effort, 0 skill in picking stock, doing nothing but tracking with the market so perhaps his "self made" status isn't really that impressive. The Author guesses he did better than average to make his fortune but that doesn't seem necessary at all.

Re: Man Built a $188M Fortune Investing in Stocks Then Donated It to Charity

#36

Post by dagw »

nemacol wrote: post #31
jsjsbdkj wrote: post #3

From the article: Most millionaires opt for stealth wealth. Their friends don’t know, their coworkers don’t know, their extended family doesn’t know. In a few cases, not even their children know! Wealth is accumulated through habits; at least in a free society like ours. At the moment, something like 1 out of 25 households falls into the millionaire category, most of it self-made. From the comments: Your right in Jac…

I keep trying to develop the habit of having wealthy parents but they keep being poor. Also, those articles about getting rich keep telling me to utilize my assets to earn additional income but that is illegal in my state. Please send help.

I keep trying to develop the habit of having wealthy parents

If you really cannot manage that, then your second best option is to have a wealthy spouse. It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing.

Re: Man Built a $188M Fortune Investing in Stocks Then Donated It to Charity

#37

Post by malandrew »

shawnz wrote: post #8
agent008t wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of those millionaires are house-rich? I.e. the house they live in just happened to appreciate significantly and is now worth over $1mm? Those people can still feel as if they are not wealthy at all.

It's almost ironic to call someone a "millionaire" these days in Toronto, which has been badly affected by the real estate bubble.

We got a good century of usage out of the term, but inflation has certainly caught up with it. A boomer that inherited $1m shortly after the end of WWII would be the equivalent of like $14m today with inflation.

Re: Man Built a $188M Fortune Investing in Stocks Then Donated It to Charity

#38

Post by HEmanZ »

cik wrote: post #17
borplk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Wealth is accumulated through habits" is a great story to tell people but it seems very often to be complete BS. Yes. It's capitalist propaganda. If you are a highly paid heart surgeon or CEO you can "accumulate wealth with habits". If you are anywhere between flipping burgers to many other types of jobs there's just not enough money "coming in" for these things to make a huge difference. You can be more sensible…

That's exceptionally untrue - though it can be true in context. In the city beside mine, renting a place downtown, and working in the grocery store it's very possible to save $500 per month. For reference, minimum wage is the equivalent of $1700 USD, and renting a one-bedroom, all in will cost roughly $454 USD. With cellphone (250GB of 5G speeds) costing the equivalent of $15 USD, and groceries and electricity costin…

And most people don't flip burgers. The median household income in the US in 2019 was $68,000/yr [1]. In the part of the US I am from, and the parts I have lived most of my life, this affords an extremely good quality of life with plenty of room for intelligent financial decisions.

So crying "this doesn't apply to people with really low incomes" is true to an extent, but that's only a fraction of the population. Going around saying "well, you shouldn't give that advice because it doesn't apply to everyone, it only applies to most people" is insane.

[1] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...).

Re: Man Built a $188M Fortune Investing in Stocks Then Donated It to Charity

#39

Post by newsclues »

andreilys wrote: post #34
nemacol wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep trying to develop the habit of having wealthy parents but they keep being poor. Also, those articles about getting rich keep telling me to utilize my assets to earn additional income but that is illegal in my state. Please send help.

utilize my assets to earn additional income but that is illegal in my state What state would make investing illegal?

It’s a prostitution joke

Re: Man Built a $188M Fortune Investing in Stocks Then Donated It to Charity

#40

Post by leppr »

craftinator wrote: post #22
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two statements aren't incongruent. People who inherit money but spend it all because of bad habits don't accumulate wealth.

Similarly, people who don't inherit money can't spend it, and for the most part also don't accumulate wealth!

Well that's the very nature of ponzinomics. How would you preserve social class otherwise? This is all working as intended.
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