Larry Winget — Money - Personal Development - Business

I just received a request from my friend, JL Pritchard, who runs a great blog called All Financial Matters.  I have the question and my response below.  This is a great financial blog that I highly recommend to you.  He does a lot of great giveaways and offers solid financial advice on a variety of topics.  I use it as a resource myself.  Check it out at:  http://www.allfinancialmatters.com

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Larry Winget’s Thoughts on ‘Poor Boomers’ Comments

By JLP | December 22, 2008

Recently, ‘Poor Boomer’ left the following comments on AFM about education:

Poor Boomer:

What’s with all the education hype? I have an awful lot of education and a minimum wage income - so what’s so great about education?

JLP:

Poor Boomer,

Education does not equal a great income.

Have you ever asked yourself why you only make minimum wage?

Poor Boomer:

It’s obvious why I make only minimum wage - I have no marketable skills and no career-related experience. (I got a liberal arts degree with law school in mind, but couldn’t afford law school, so my degree is now worthless.)

His answer bugged me so I sent him an email and asked him if I could post about his experience. This was his response:

Hi, no problem - you’re welcome to it. I think a college education is, generally, an excellent investment, BUT one entailing huge downside risks. I can now say that NOT seeking an internship in college (I was sure I couldn’t afford unpaid work) was one of my biggest mistakes. Also, I think there is a moderate time window in which one must “do something” with their education or degree in order to have meaningful career prospects. This time window for me lasted roughly five years, during which obtaining an interview was not especially difficult. After roughly five years, the interviews abruptly stopped coming.

Instead of me addressing this myself, I decided to ask Larry Winget for his help. For those of you not familiar with Larry, he has written a ton of best-selling books. His latest, People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It!, will be released next week (see Larry’s website for details on special he’s running). I like Larry’s style because he doesn’t sugar-coat his advice. He tells it like it is.

So, I sent Larry an email asking him for his opinion and this was his response:

I hear this argument a lot. Rarely do people actually work in the field in which they get a degree. Degrees in education, liberal arts and the like are typically not the educational path to high-paying jobs. In fact, in my opinion, the whole reason for a college degree is the education in discipline it requires to get the degree - not what your area of studies were. It takes personal discipline, personal responsibility and accountability, the ability/willingness to study, the time and effort to get to class and sit through class, the skills to test, the ability to work with others, the ability to set a goal and achieve it, to manage your time and a variety of tasks, and on and on and on. Those skills are the skills most beneficial from earning a college degree and those are the skills that can make you rich if applied.

People need to realize that “being excellent” at something that no one is willing to pay for is of little value if you measure success in terms of financial achievement (and most of us do.) One really marketable skill - again one and only one - can make you rich.

If someone has a real desire to be successful, all they have to do is ask themselves what skills are people willing to pay for? I will guarantee they are the skills I listed above. All other specific/technical/job-related skills can be taught and most employers are more than willing to teach job-related skills to anyone who has the ability to set and achieve goals, be responsible, manage their time, handle a variety of tasks, work well with others and so on.

Another comment on the posting is this: Anyone - again ANYONE who makes minimum wage is only putting out minimum effort. Tough approach I know, but it is true. Minimum wage jobs are STARTING places - they are entry level jobs into the employment pool. The people who get them and stay in them are the people who aren’t willing to go beyond minimum effort and show their employer they have more than minimum skills.

By the way, my degree is in Library Science. Do you think I would be where I am today utilizing all the marketable skills I learned in that degree program? No. I never worked a day with that degree. I also never used it as an excuse. Instead, I quickly realized that in order to be financially successful, I was going to have to apply myself in other areas and do things that had nothing to do with a library! You don’t get a degree and think your education is over. Education is a continuing process. Therefore, I have read over 4,000 books since I got my degree. I have listened to 5,000 hours of audio and watched that much educational video. I still read every day to make sure I am current on what my audience wants from me. In my world, my audience is both my customer and my employer. This concept must apply to everyone in the workplace. I continue to learn so I will have something of value to offer my employer and my customer. Everyone must ask themselves if they are doing the same thing.

What are you reading? What are you watching? What are you listening to? Will it make you a better employee? employer? manager? salesperson? janitor? or will it only entertain you and leave you as stupid as when you started?

Before you blame your degree for your success or lack of it, go to the mirror and take a good hard look at yourself and answer those questions. Then you will have a clue as to why your life looks like it does.

Larry Winget

Larry said it better than I could have said it myself. I appreciate him taking the time to respond to my email.

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ON A SEPARATE NOTE:  If you are on FACEBOOK, be sure to sign up as one of my friends AND join to the Larry Winget Unofficial Fan Club.  I don’t have anything to do with the fan club but I joined it anyway!  I am brand new to FACEBOOK and think some people on there really need to get lives, however, it’s a fast way to distribute information to everyone about things that are going on.  So sign on and I’ll do my best to notify all of my friends on there of upcoming television appearances.

http://www.larrywinget.com/facebook.html

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Is holiday shopping right  for you this year?  You may think that holiday shopping is for everyone, but sorry, it isn’t.   And this year, more than any other time in recent history, I am asking that people consider some things before they shop.

I did several interviews yesterday about Black Friday and people who were out at the crack of dawn looking for bargains.  My position was that people should stay home and consider their situation before they rush out to hit the stores, unless they could truly afford to be out shopping.  It was fun for the interviewers to portray me as a total Scrooge and I am sure they would have loved for me to say “Bah Humbug!”

In reality, I am not a Scrooge at all.  I love to buy presents!  I love to shop.  I love for others to shop.  I like for the stores to do well and for kids to get lots of presents and for everyone to have a great time exchanging gifts. But for economists to advise that shopping is good for our economy is short-sighted.  It may be good for THE economy, but is it right for YOUR economy?  That’s the real question.  Is shopping the right thing for you to do with your money right now given your personal economic situation?

 (Before I get into that, I want to comment about the trampling at Wal-Mart and the shooting in Palm Desert.  These are extreme cases, but there were other stories of fistfights and shoving and screaming over things that were on sale for Christmas.  If you ever wonder why other parts of the world think so little of us, you can add this to your list.  We are KILLING each other to save $10 on a freaking video game!  Are you kidding me?  This is indeed a sad commentary on our society.  No further comment is needed on this one.  We should all be saddened and ashamed by this tragedy.)

Back to shopping and whether it is right for you:  If your obligations are all met and you have CASH left over, then shop.  It’s that simple.  If you can afford to shop, get after it.  AFTER your obligations are met.  What are your obligations?  Your bills, saving for the future and being charitable.

Obligation #1.  Your bills.  That includes the money you have already spent and owe someone else.  Your credit cards. (Many people are still paying for last year’s Christmas presents.) Your mortgage, car payment, insurance, utilities, etc. are also your obligation.  Your obligation to these people does not go away because it’s Christmas and you didn’t plan better and set aside any extra money for Christmas.  Pay your bills first!

Obligation #2. Your future.  Save some money – no excuses – just do it.  You are obligated to put away money for your kid’s future, for your retirement, and for health emergencies.  You have always heard, “Save for a rainy day.”  Folks, the sky is full of dark clouds and thunder right now . . . SAVE!  You have to be taking care of your future today.  Even though you want to buy presents with your money, do the right thing for your family and save at least SOME of your money.

Obligation #3.  Charity.  While I am a “life is your own damn fault” and “no bail-out for anyone” kind of guy, I also believe there are people, who through no fault of their own, need our help.  That means that they need my help and YOUR help.   Give to some qualified charity because I really see it as your obligation as a human being to do so.  My favorite charity is Feed The Children (www.feedthechildren.org).  I have done lots of research on this organization and they are rock solid.  They feed children around the world.  You can even earmark the area of the world where you want your contribution spent or you can designate that your money be used to feed children only in the United States.  It takes so little to feed so many.  Give to them or any of the other fine charities that help feed and clothe people. 

Then . . . IF you have done those three things and have CASH left over, go shopping.   But scale back on the number of presents this year if money is an issue for you.  Sadly, Christmas has become the time of year when you spend money you don’t have to buy presents you don’t like for people you can’t stand.  Stop that trend this year.  Buy for those you really love and care about.  Be thoughtful in your gift selection.  Buy one present instead of ten.  Make your gifts.  Use Craigslist and eBay to get bargains on pre-owned items.

When I was broke and had gone bankrupt and lost it all, I had a garage sale and took a total of $50 to the Army Surplus Store to buy my two boys their presents for Christmas.  Just the other day, my boys told me that was their best Christmas ever.  It’s not how much you spend, it’s how well you spend it.  Stretch your dollar this year.  And if you are still strapped for cash, sell some of your old stuff to raise cash.  And please notice that I said CASH left over.  Whatever you do, please don’t go into debt to buy presents this year.  The time is not right to go deeper in debt for any reason.  Have a talk with your family, (even the little kids) and shoot ‘em straight about your financial situation.  I didn’t grow up with much and my parents did this with me several times when things were particularly tough and I completely understood.  I didn’t care for me that much but I hated it for them because I knew they were embarrassed.   But it put me on the team and made me feel like I could be a part of making things better.

Christmas is about giving.  

Give to those you owe money because you gave your word you would pay it back on time. 

Give to your future by saving some money today. 

Give to those who have even less than you do. 

Give to your family the gift of honesty by communicating to them what your situation really is. 

Then do what it takes to have a great holiday season full of love, knowing that you have done the right thing by your family and your self.   

I am also including a podcast conversation with my good buddy, Mark Sanborn. Sanborn is the bestselling author of several books and a true friend. You have enjoyed his insights on my member’s site, I’m sure. This time, we just have a great conversation about the holidays, what they mean and what you can do to enjoy them more and keep them in perspective.

  Click here:    Simple Solutions to the Holidays

Happy Holidays!   Larry

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What do I mean by that?  Automobile manufacturers want US (that’s you and me) to bail them out with our tax dollars.  Well, to hell with ‘em.  Yep.  Let ‘em sink.  Buh-bye! 

Harsh?  I don’t care.   

1.    If bad management is responsible for your problems, them fire their asses and get some good management in.  By the way, filing bankruptcy would mean that the bankruptcy court would probably force them to hire new management . . . good. 

2.     If you sold your soul to the autoworker’s union and they have a strangle hold on you - tough.  You should have told the union to kiss your ass and hired the millions of out of work people who would have happily done the job for less money and been willing to work harder to boot, I am guessing. 

3.     If you are so out of touch that you don’t understand that you should have been more responsive to the market and attentive to the environment, then you deserve to fail.  Remember, these automakers are partially to blame for the fact that we are so dependent on foreign oil!  Stop making Hummers, Stupid!  Stop producing cars that get 8 miles to the gallon!  How are you serving the American people well by doing that?   

I travel all over the world.  I see SMALL cars wherever I go.  The Mini Cooper has been available in the UK since 1961.  We got it five years ago. Why?  Because American gas-guzzling manufacturers kept it out!  The Smart Car has been around for years.  We are just now seeing these delivered in the United States for the same reason: the Big 3 kept it out.  Mercedes has the cutest little bitty car that has been available in Europe - the Mercedes 130 and the 150.  They get great mileage.  Can you buy them here?  Nope.   And India has the Tata.  A car that gets 54 mpg and cost $2500 RETAIL.  India???  Aren’t we as capable as they are?  I would think the answer would be yes.  So why don’t we have a $2500 car that gets 54 mpg?  Those good ol’ American automakers that want us to bail their asses out don’t want to make them, that’s why.  Besides the cost would be too high, they would argue.  And whose fault is that?

By the way, we (you and me) are guilty too in this whole mess.  We should have been tougher on them and demanded more from them.  Instead, we bought our Hummers and Tahoes and Escalades and begged for them to be heavier and bigger.  We were stupid.   A few years ago, the government even encouraged us by giving us tax breaks for driving an SUV for business.  I took advantage of that tax break and bought a car just heavy enough to qualify.  I’m sorry.  I wish I had not done that.  Now, my wife drives a Mini Cooper and I drive a Dodge Dakota (the small one) pickup.  Could I drive whatever I want?  Of course I could.  But I don’t need to impress anyone so who the hell cares?  Besides, I get a kick out of  pulling up in front of a fancy restaurant and making them valet my pickup! 

Bottom line:  No bailout for Detroit.  I know people will lose jobs.  Sorry.  Maybe those autoworkers shouldn’t have been so greedy.   (GM says that the average base pay is $40 per hour)  Learn to run your business smarter like the rest of us have to in order to survive.  If you have stupid management, fire them.  Try responding to the marketplace with products that we can afford and that we would love to be able to buy.  Products that are good for the economy and good for the environment and that might reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  Be more responsible and maybe I might be more willing to lend you a buck or two! And if they all went out of business (and they won’t!) . . . don’t we have enough USED cars to survive for a while?  Or couldn’t we just drive the cars we have for a year on two longer?    

Thanks for reading! Larry 

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This week I posted one of my best blogs ever as a follow up to my last…….. to be fair, I did what I said I would do and put it on my Member’s Only site, The Truth Be Told.  For those of you who have not joined, I am going to GIVE you access to see last month’s first debut issue:  just go to the site Truth Be Told and register and put in the passcode:  larry4free

You will get the first issue for FREE and if you like it, you can then join.  Each month, you will get a ton of stuff.  It’s only $14.95 per month or $99 for a whole year!  For a teaser of this month’s special blog, this is an excerpt from the blog and the rant:

I am sick of listening to the politicians blow smoke up my skirt saying that Americans are the hardest working people on the planet.  They are simply pandering to our emotions and our sense of patriotism about what great people we are.  That’s a load of crap.  American workers are NOT the hardest working people on the planet.  Read a little.  Watch some educational television.   Travel some.  You will quickly find out that the American worker is about the laziest worker on the planet.  For the most part, workers do just enough to squeeze by.  Tell them that you have a problem with how little effort they put out and the crappy job they are doing and they will contact their union rep and file a grievance.  Yep, I am taking on labor unions too.  Originally, they were a great idea.  They were formed to protect the American worker from abuse.  But folks, this ain’t a hundred years ago.   Working conditions are not what they used to be.  Your rights aren’t being violated by expecting you to actually do what you were hired to do and are being paid to do.  Now labor unions exist not to make sure that workers are treated fairly and to stop abuse but to put the squeeze on companies for every dollar they can to the point that the company can no longer be profitable or compete globally.  Want to know why we ship so many jobs overseas?  One of the reasons is labor unions.  Highly skilled people, who are willing to work harder than people in our country are willing to work (and for less money, I know) and don’t belong to a union that has management by the short hairs. (Of course the situation is more complex than that but this is a rant, not a thesis.)  In few cases does America produce the highest quality product  and almost never is it done at the lowest price. 

Am I anti-American?  Some of you will read this and think so.  Nothing could be more wrong.  I am very PRO-American.  But I’m not so wild about what we have let happen to our great country.  GREED.  A lack of INTEGRITY.  LIES.  IMMORALITY.  Not the kind of immorality that the fundamentalists talk about.  I’m talking about the morality that is based in doing the RIGHT thing.  The thing that has nothing to do with religion or politics.  Instead, it’s the thing you know in your heart is right because it just IS.  You don’t have to ask, you don’t have to think about who will win and who will lose, you don’t have to wonder about the repercussions or consequences, you just KNOW it’s the right thing.  And because you know it is the right thing, you do it.  That is real morality.

For the rest, in fairness to my member’s you have to join.  Sorry if that doesn’t sit well with you but…………

And because I get such a kick out of these negative “reviews” of my books I have to share them.  Here are two reviews of my books that I found on Amazon this week. 

Larry “The Cable Guy” Wingnut is what’s wrong with America: an ignorant prole spreading uberklass idiotology. The favorable reviews here are as illiterate as Right-Winget is mindless. Susan Jacoby’s “The Age of American Unreason” is a book about such socio-pathic narcissists’ favorite subject: themselves. Too bad they can’t read. They’d find out what the rest of the world knows: pinheads like Winget and his ilk are prime examples of why Amerrycaca is, as Merle Haggard puts it, “rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell.” The nation of Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Adams, and Franklin has become the nation of George Bush, Ronald Raygun, Al Sharpton, Jane Fonda, and Larry Winget. As such, it’s a nation that can no longer govern itself. Its only hope is to continue being governed more and more by multi-national corporations, which are increasingly run by other nations, none of whom are as incompetent as America, which is losing two wars at once because it can’t even beat a gang of camel jockeys.

Not much of a review of my BOOK …..  AND it’s racist but Amazon posted it anyway ……   Here is another one …………………….

Larry wastes the millions he gets from his books on tons of cowboy boots he doesn’t need. Nice way to set an example. He sells useless things like bobblehead dolls of himself on his website. Ask yourself: would a guy who really cared about helping you out of financial trouble sell you things you don’t need? If he’s so rich he can waste tons on silly cowboy boots, he’s the one laughing his way to the bank….with your hard earned money!

I thought this was supposed to be a self help book. Instead it’s a stand-up comedy piece with lots of in your face ranting and raving about experiences this guy had. He’s no expert, just an overconfident entertainer that wears funny clothes. If that’s why you buy his books, fine. Don’t expect to get actual answers and helpful advice.

Yep, I am what is wrong with America.  Me and Al Sharpton and Jane Fonda and Ronald Reagan and oh yeah, George Bush.  Actually, he is right about Bush!   This “review” is classic and cracks me up!!!!  I love it.  Oh yeah, BEWARE of my bobbleheads - they will cause you to go broke!!!!  By the way, sadly, I ran out.  People bought them and had to file bankruptcy because of it while I laughed my way to the bank with the $4 profit I made on each one of them.   And are my clothes really that funny?  

I am recording 12, yes TWELVE new video DVDs this week that will be available soon.  Stay tuned for details.  Also, next week I will be announcing the release of a brand new DVD we just released! 

All the best until next time!

Larry

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For those of you who watch Fox News or Fox Business, you have seen me on both of those stations for the past few weeks talking about the bailout.  For those of you who don’t watch those stations and haven’t seen me, let me catch you up. 

1.      This is a bailout.  Period.  This is NOT a rescue plan. If it looks like crap and smells like crap, I don’t have to taste it to know it’s crap.  And this load of crap is a bailout.  Don’t be fooled by the cutesy names that make it more palatable.  It is not a rescue or a stimulus package.   This is a bailout of Wall Street.  We are bailing them out because of greed and stupidity.  

2.      I am against it.  I know the ramifications and I know what they SAY will happen if we don’t.  I don’t buy it.  Lots of economists don’t buy it either.  When you reward bad behavior you set a bad example and in this case, you set a precedent where any time an industry gets in trouble, they will consider it their right to go to the government (that’s you and me) to bail them out.  I am also against it because any behavior, when rewarded will be repeated.  I am also against it because any lesson, not learned will be repeated.  This lesson is not being learned because the consequences are not being imposed.   You take your licks now or you take them later.  I would rather see us take them now.  Add to that the fact that we don’t know if it will work or not.  For $700 Billion we should know whether it is going to work or not.  We don’t have a CLUE.  

3.      I am aware people are suffering.  I hear from folks every day who are making their payments, working two jobs and doing their best and are still in trouble.  They are not the idiots I talk about all the time.  They are good folks, working hard and still not able to get ahead.  These people will not be helped by this bailout.  Don’t buy it, this is for Wall Street, not Main Street.

4.      When the government says that something will cost a dollar, it will cost three.  One for the program.  One for government waste to implement the program.  One for someone to make money off the program.  Also, any government program takes twice as long to implement as promised and does half as much good as promised.

5.      Fear.  Bush came on TV and told people that their kids weren’t going to be able to go to college and that your company wouldn’t make payroll and that you wouldn’t be able to buy a new car.  That is fear mongering and I don’t like it.  On top of all that, when George Bush comes on television and says “trust me, we need to do this”  I am skeptical.  You should be too.  He has lied to us before and that lie cost us thousands of lives and about ten billion dollars per month.  Add to this fear the stupid economists who are saying that you will go to your ATM and won’t be able to get money out - total BS.  FEAR FEAR FEAR.  Trying to create a panic among all of us regular folks so we will support it.  So far, the people aren’t buying it and are communicating that to their elected officials.  GOOD.  I hope WE win.

6.      Credit is going to be hard to get.  Is that a bad thing?  Credit was too easy to get for way too long.  That is a major part of this whole mess.  AND, I don’t think people are worried so much about future credit as much as they are about having cash to pay the credit they already have.  Who cares if your 401K takes a hit if you lose your house?

7.      I find this whole thing offensive.  SUDDENLY the government is aware we have a crisis.  On July 18, Bush said the “fundamentals of our economy are sound.”  On August 20, McCain said “the fundamentals of our economy are STRONG.”  And NOW we are in crisis and the administration want us to immediately come to their rescue!  I have been working for a couple of years with regular folks who have known for a good long while that the economy is NOT sound and that Americans are in a financial crisis.  You knew the economy sucked.  I knew it sucked.  Why didn’t the government?  In July, Bush said that he had HEARD of $4 a gallon gasoline but wasn’t aware of it.  He wasn’t aware of it but you and I were paying it.  That is another reason I wasn’t in any rush to support a blank check from a guy who said he had the solution to a problem only weeks before didn’t believe we had. 

 Listen, I could go on and on about this but I won’t.  And I refuse to make this about politics.  I am just reporting the FACTS here.  Again, calling a spade a spade.  Watch the clips of me on the shows in my Video Vault.  Instead of ranting about the bailout any longer, let me instead tell you what you should do.

Don’t make long term decisions based on short term fears.  In other words, don’t panic.  Good decisions are rarely made when people are emotional or in panic mode.

Understand that investments carry a risk.  If you didn’t know that, then you never should have been investing in the first place.

Investments are long term.  Hang on.  What goes up MUST go down.  What goes down, eventually goes back up again.

Cut back on your lifestyle.  If you can survive without it right now, then don’t spend money on it.

Stay away from debt.  And if you are in debt, get out as quickly as you can.

Sell off the crap you don’t need. Pay off the crap you shouldn’t have bought.

Cash is KING.  Accumulate as much as you can.  Put it someplace where you can get your hands on it quickly.

If you have money, now is a good time to invest.  Things are cheap right now and they will go back up.  Some stocks are a good buy.  Real estate is a good buy.  But ONLY invest if you understand the risk involved and if you can afford it.

Folks, this is a tough time for our country.  People are having a hard time making ends meet.  It isn’t going to get any easier for a while – maybe a good long while.  Be smart!

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