It Pays to Be Rich

The rich have gotten a bad rap.

For instance, the rich are less likely to be obese and/or addicted. Stanton Peele in The Truth About Addiction and Recovery says, “We can actually predict the likelihood of people's becoming addicted far more reliably from their nationality and social class...than their biological makeup.” Relatively few of the upper class are obese. In fact lower class women were six times more likely than upper class women to be obese.

A survey of the extremely wealthy found that they had better sex lives. 75% of the men said their sex lives were better because they had sex more often, and with a greater variety of partners. Remember, in the Philippines, you are filthy stinking rich (if you know how to play your cards). This summer I met a guy in the Philippines who had 4 women in bed at once! I heard of a guy there who lives with two women.

In the Philippines guys who know the ropes live life like a sexual buffet.

I've come to the conclusion that sexual wealth and financial wealth are related (positively correlated), as well as sexual poverty and financial poverty.

Yet being rich is supposedly bad. The latest attack on wealth comes from Barack Obama, who is betting that you hate rich people so much, that you're okay with someone taking their money –by force, if necessary. Why don't a bunch of us struggling middle class guys just roll some rich guy for his watch and his wallet. He doesn't need them, right?

The church has declared war on the rich. “Money is the root of all evil,” “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,” and the story of the rich man who wanted to follow Jesus, but changed his mind when Jesus told him to sell everything.

In church, being poor was “spiritual,” while being rich was like spitting in the face of God. Oh, yeah, there was nothing wrong with being rich, per se, but a rich person was always suspected of being outside the faith, sort of like a Muslim pig farmer.

Jesus is depicted as a homeless bum, complete with bare feet and a beard, but without the malt liquor. Jesus was poor, you know, just sleeping in the fields and picking fruit out of orchards for meals. And if the Lord didn't have deodorant, then who are you to want fancy-shmancy Old Spice and a leather chair?

The Cliff Notes Sunday school shorthand version of Christianity always held that it is downright scary to get wealthy, because that means you're a heartbeat away from turning your back on God. The best thing that God can do for you in that situation, in his infinite mercy and compassion, would be to have a B-52 on a training mission fall out of the sky in a wheeling fireball, completely obliterating your factory, wiping you out financially, and leaving you with third degree burns over 90% of your body.

Whew! That was close! Thank you, Jesus! I was all into myself, earning money and living my life. Now that I'm being fed intravenously, drinking Budweiser is out of the question. No more fornicating. As long as I'm in intensive care, I won't be hitting any strip clubs or R movies.

Okay, so the 200 employees making good wages and benefits at my recently obliterated factory are now unemployed, but hey, that's also helping to bring them closer to the Lord. And as for the grieving family of the vaporized eight man crew of the B-52, it's helping to bring them closer to the Lord, too. (Some of whom, it should be mentioned in passing, were starting to get a little too uppity and self-sufficient.) Nothing like another Hindenburg disaster to bring people into the fold.

Now, I realize that just talking like I am now, and speaking openly in favor of wealth, some are going to assume I'm talking about running over grandma if necessary, and earning enough to go on a huge shopping spree. Or that I'm going to urge you to work harder on the treadmill to push yourself into the top 5% of income, or die trying. Well, no.

I think that ultimately life is about wealth. Sexual wealth. Wealth in friendships and family relationships. Wealth in owning things of lasting beauty and value. Wealth in the form of managing your resources so that you get the greatest joy possible from your income.

Pyramid Schemes and Slaves

I was ripped off by a pyramid scheme.

If anyone asks you to join any kind of multi-level marketing organization (MLM), don't walk, run the hell out. Often a friend will ask you to join, and the best way to save your friendship is to say “no.”

I revisited my MLM experience after reading Perry Marshall, a Google adwords expert, talk about his painful experience in, and eventual liberation from, MLM giant Amway.

It started with my friend Dennis asking me to join his MLM. It was a tremendous opportunity to sell a discount medical care program. Dennis knew guys who were making huge money, and the organization was just staring to take off in the area.

First of all, I had to enroll in the program. The cheapest option was something like $60 a month. Since I already had health insurance, my monthly enrollment was just so I could sell the program. There was also a starter kit, which cost nearly $300.

Warning Sign #1

How much does it cost you to sell something?

Do you have to pay to become a newspaper boy? No. You sell newspapers, and the local paper gets a share of the profits while increasing circulation. There are no sign up fees, no starter kits, no monthly dues.

Imagine you are selling a book you've written. Why would you charge me a sign up fee, monthly membership, starter kit, training tapes, etc.? The more I sell, the more money you'll make, and we'd share the profits.

As Perry Marshall points out, the real money in Amway is not product sales to the public, but in the fees incurred by members looking to get rich, fees for tapes, seminars, training, etc.

In the healthcare MLM we had meetings at hotels, and I was a speaker. I'm good at public speaking. I made up brochures and business cards. One time Dennis and I went out in the snow in nearly blizzard conditions to post and hand out flyers. Nothing came of it. I asked Dennis to show me how to sell the program, but he never did. I never saw him make a sale.

I had a couple of presentations to a few prospects, but never closed the deal.

In my year or so in MLM, I never sold a product, nor did I ever see anyone in the organization sell the product.

Warning Sign #2

Are you selling a real product or a pipe dream?

Eventually I realized what was being sold was not the product, but the dream, or the “opportunity” as it was called.

Imagine I'm selling Freedom Paste, a regular sized tube of toothpaste for 7 bucks. You pay a one-time sign up fee of 297.99, plus a monthly enrollment fee of 48.99. You buy Freedom Paste from your upline for $6 a tube, plus shipping and handling.

Why would anyone buy Freedom Paste from you, when they can buy toothpaste at Wal-mart for less than two bucks? How much Freedom Paste do you have to sell before you break even?

Suppose you have no marketing skills or experience, no sales skills or experience, and no special product knowledge. It is not realistic to expect to be idly wealthy. It is more realistic to go to MacDonald's and get to work. In fact, given the choice between MLM and MacDonald's, fast food is the better choice, hands down. At least MacDonald's pays minimum wage. There's no sign-up fee or monthly dues you pay to work at MacDonald's –amazingly, they pay you. You can fry burgers at Mickey D's without exploiting your friends and family. It's honest work.

It turns out that the Egyptian pyramids weren't built by slaves, but by paid laborers, who received beer as part of their wages. If I had got a beer out of my MLM experience, that would be a vast improvement. The real slaves are toiling in pyramid schemes, dreaming of making it big.

And almost everybody in an MLM loses money. That's right. I lost money. But I consider myself lucky, because many people lose thousands –and tens of thousands-- of dollars.

It Gets Deeper

Some bigshots came in from corporate headquarters. I won $500 for a powerpoint presentation contest. (I split the money with Dennis, since the presentation was largely his ideas.) After the higher ups left, Dennis asked me what I thought of them. I responded that they seemed knowledgeable and helpful.

“Oh really?” Dennis replied. “That's not how they came across to me.”

Now Dennis revealed that something was fishy in the organization. He'd known of this for weeks, but said nothing to me. Some people who were supposed to get checks (Like him, for instance. I never got a check other than for the contest) were having trouble getting their money.

Dennis was abandoning the current MLM, and going with a new one, the New Improved MLM. It was a similar healthcare plan, only the minimum monthly fee for this one was $99. I never joined, and I soon quit.

I called and canceled, yet the next month the organization still took money out of my account! I eventually got it straightened out, and was done.

Soon Denis had gone to a third organization, because there was something fishy going on with the New Improved MLM.

Now Dennis was with the Latest New Improved MLM. He was appointed to be a regional manager. The founder of the Latest New Improved MLM was a guy who had made huge money on MLM one.

Before long Dennis and his wife found out that they were going to be millionaires. They were about to go from renting a modest apartment to living in a multiple bedroom mansion. They no longer had any kids living at home, but that was beside the point. Dennis and his most productive salesman went out shopping for homes, and had pictures of palatial estates they had visited with real estate agents. They were test driving Mercedes Benz cars.

An e-mail went out. “NOW is the time to get in on this opportunity! There is a HUGE income potential!”

And I had to ask myself, “What if this thing pays off huge, and I miss out?” There seemed to be strong evidence that Dennis was going to be rich.

Well, I reasoned it out.

1. I never sold anything before. What made me think I could sell anything in the future? I had to take an honest look at my skills and strengths. I am good at writing and public speaking. In fact, I excel at it, which is why I won the contest. If it sounds like I'm bragging, I also suck at sales.

2. I never made any money before. What reason was there to believe that I could make money now?

3. I am not a healthcare expert. It is not my area of interest. It is not what I want to do. It is not aligned with my strengths.

I had to resign myself to the fact that even if Dennis made millions, there was no reason to think that I could make a single penny in his Latest New Improved MLM.

Surprise, surprise. The whole thing fell through. I know of at least one woman who invested $2,000 and lost it all. Her phone calls to Dennis were not returned. The customer service number at Latest New Improved MLM was disconnected. Talk of the luxury mansion was quietly dropped.

What bothers me the most is the lack of accountability. I never made money, but Dennis made money off me, and other friends he talked into signing up. The honest thing to do would be to 'fess up, to say, “Hey, sorry I steered you guys wrong.”

Of course, there was greed on my part, too. And it's sad how a pipe dream of getting rich enables people to exploit their friends and blowup friendships in the process.

Your Legacy, Starting Now

"A tiger dies and leaves his pelt,
a man leaves only his name."
Japanese proverb

My grandfather died a year or so ago, and my mother gave me some of his things. They were just cheap jewelry, bolo ties with horses on them. I'm not complaining, but it illustrated to me how we actually own so little of value.

My dad is undergoing chemotherapy right now. He has an incurable, although slow-progressing form of cancer. I was at my parents' house watching a football game when my mother brought up the subject of their will and inheritance. My dad is in his 70's, and my mom just hit retirement age.

My mom said they would rather square everything up now, rather than have a situation after their death when there's bickering and people squabbling over things. I told my parents I don't need anything. I'm not going to fight over who gets what of their belongings.

My mom said she thought the furnishings and appliances in their house should go to my sister. I agreed.

"What is there of ours that you would like to have?"

I was tearing up. I didn't like even thinking about it. Though we've all known for years that my dad has this cancer, I've mentally kept it at arm's length.

"The picture of dad in his police uniform. And his guns."

My mom said, "we may as well give it to you now." She went into the back and brought back my dad's Luger. He got the Luger when he was chasing a car. The guys in the car disassembled the gun and threw it out the window piece by piece. My dad went back later and recovered all of the pieces, except for the trigger spring.

But it's a question, "What do I own of real value?" "If I were to die, what would be passed on?"

I'm not talking about monetary value. The point is that we surround ourselves with junk. We own mass produced, disposable items. Even the very expensive things we own, like large TV's, have little resale value, and say nothing about us as persons.

One thing I have of value is a sterling silver razor handle that's engraved. I shave with it every day. Yes, I know it's not going into the Getty Museum anytime soon, and no one is going to sell it and have a night out on the town. But the typical alternative is the cheap, disposable Bic shavers. Even the higher priced electric shavers have no real value. They aren't in any sense unique.

What do you own that's unique? Have you created something, like a song, a book, or a carving that will last and be treasured after you die?

Because the question is really not about your death, but about the quality of your life right now.

U-Haul Can Go to Hell

I'm finished helping my friends move. I've taken a blood oath I'm through.

It's not that I don't want to work, even though a couple of years back I nearly broke my ankle. I was the one walking backward down the steps with a dining room table, when my foot hit the corner of the sidewalk, with no grass or soil around it, but a deep depression. My foot pivoted and I heard a sickening "crack." That was the end of my moving. For the next couple of days I crawled around the house, and limped for months.

No, I'm tired of moving people's useless crap. (And "crap" is a polite term.) The latest was a woman who was moving because her husband was an abusive loser. We spent all day moving more useless junk, from a drawer full of MacDonald's, Burger King, and cereal box trinkets, to the particle board furniture which really should have been in a fireplace somewhere, to the countless boxes of knicknacks and white elephant gifts.

It's appalling how much flotsam and jetsam accumulates in a person's closets, drawers, and garage. We are like neurotic rats constantly packing in more. We're Imelda Marcos with 3,000 pairs of shoes in a walk-in closet, headed out the door because shoes are on sale at Macy's. We're diabetics wedged into a corner by mounds of hoarded candy that we can't eat.

Eventually I got pissed off. I spent all day sweating, busting my butt, moving stuff that she should have burned, sold, given away, or abandoned as a playground for cockroaches in the wake of a nuclear holocaust.

But no, she can't let it go. She's got to cling to her shoebox full of bottle caps, the rubber band collection, the Ronco In-the-Egg Scrambler. The garage was once the Land of Misfit Gifts, brimming with odd, useless "gifts" that are foisted on others by givers with little imagination or effort, and junk that only a marketing genius who had sold his soul to the Devil could ever have got anyone to buy.

Of everything I moved into a huge van, where was anything of value? Years of working, buying, and exchanging gifts amounted to nothing more than an avalanche of disposable gargbage. It was as though she had spent years of her life doing nothing more than constructing a landfill.

Then comes the thought: Am I doing any better?

Bowling for Dollars (and Chicks)

I was in the Philippines this summer, and right now I'm back and finishing up my master's degree. (Yes, at last.)

I studied the Filipino martial arts with a grandmaster of a close fighting style, and I met an incredible girl. I met her via Date in Asia.com. She was young with a great set of breasts (even though I'm much more interested in spiritual beauty, ha ha).

Date in Asia is a free dating site. Before going I lined up a bunch of women, maybe 10 or so, and got phone numbers. I think this is key number one, to line up a bunch of women. Earlier I wrote about an acquaintance of mine (and I could choke him for not consulting me) whose single biggest mistake was focusing everything on a single woman. I arrived in the Philippines with several prospects.

Plan A is not enough. Have plans B-Z.

As soon as I arrived I had an Australian friend and his girlfriend who were looking to set me up with a single girl they knew. A Filipino gentleman approached me and offered to set me up with a girl he knew. A girl walked up to me in Ayala Mall and started flirting with me. Things didn't go very far when I told her I was there to meet my girlfriend. These opportunities fell into my lap, not because I'm a Brad Pitt look alike, but simply because I got on a plane, dressed reasonably well, and come across as a decent guy.


The Scammer, and a Date at the Bowling Alley

So as soon as I arrived I texted Anne and a couple of other girls to try to set up a date. I got a reply from an unknown number and set up a meet in SM Mall. I assumed the girl was Gladys from Cordova.

When we met at SM Mall, the girl was not the one in the picture. I started to get upset. I was close to chewing her out for being a scammer and using fake photos, and so on. But I thought, "Screw it. I'm on vacation and here to have fun."

So the girl Gladys, her friend Marcela, and I agreed to go bowling. By the way, this is a great date idea in Cebu City. Neither of the girls had been bowling before, and anything new creates excitement. I paid about 300 pesos for an hour of unlimited bowling, and I had to buy the girls socks, for about forty pesos each. In all, I spent about 12-15 bucks.

I really didn't care at that point if the date led anywhere; I was just having fun. The girls' socks had American flags on them, so I told them they were "lucky American socks."

We bowled and the girls were horrible. I wasn't much better. Gradually Marcela went from getting gutter balls to scoring the occasional strike. And I started to notice Marcela. She was cute, with a fun-loving, easy going way about her.

But how could I make a move on Marcela without offending Gladys? Of course, in my mind Gladys was just a scammer and deserved whatever she got. But still, it wasn't in me to be rude to Gladys.

The date ended and we said good-bye. I chalked up Marcela as the one that got away. And I had fun. What the hell, I was on vacation, with no bills, no work, no hassles, in a tropical paradise packed to the rafters with beautiful women. Hey, life was great.


Plan B

So I got back on the phone and texted Anne again. "Let's meet," I suggested.

"We already met," she replied.

"What?" My mind was racing.

"I'm 'Marcela,'" she explained.

I was floored. I didn't recognize her from her picture online, but now I could see the resemblance. When I had texted her, Marcela (Anne is her middle name.) had used her friend Gladys as a screen. This way she could observe the guy she was interested in without the pressure of going out on a date. She could be the "fly on the wall" carefully observing if this guy was the type of guy she was looking for.

The desperate kind of guy who would settle for anybody would wind up with her friend Gladys. Which was good for Gladys and good for Anne, as it saved her from the desperate loser types out there.

The Importance of Plans B-Z

Anne was my girlfriend all this summer, and she still writes me. She was dynamite in bed, in addition to being the most easy-going, easy to like woman I've ever met.

Many times I've looked back and realized just how close I was to blowing it. If I had yelled at Gladys "the scammer" and stormed off, I would have missed the opportunity of a lifetime. But because I had multiple women lined up and confidence in my ability to find one (or several), I was able to play the hand I was dealt --which looked like an online scammer and her tag along friend out for a free lunch-- and win with it.

The importance of Plan B is not just to give you a back up option of Plan A fails, but to help you win with Plan A. Knowing you have Plan B, as well as Plans C, D, E, etc. means that you come across as relaxed. You are not trying to force the situation out of desperation.