Author Archives: Money Reasons

About Money Reasons

A offbeat personal finance blogger that comes from the tech world.

Attacking Jamie Dimon – Are the Protesters Looking Foolish?

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I have to wonder if the Protester are starting to look a bit foolish and uneducated?

The following excerpt was taken from “The Associated Press”:

At one point, protesters stopped in front of a building where they said Dimon, JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO, has an apartment.

“Where’s our bailout?” they screamed. “How do we end this deficit? End the war, tax the rich!”

JPMorgan was among the banks that received federal bailout funds, and has since paid them back.

Dimon got supportive words Monday from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said, “He’s brought more business to this city than maybe any other banker in (the) modern day. … To go and picket him, I don’t know what that achieves. Jamie Dimon’s an honorable person working very hard. He pays his taxes.”

I have real problems with this kind of action, especially when people attack the heroes of the “Great Recession”.

This is why I have problems with the protesters attacking someone like Jamie Dimon:

  • JPMorgan Chase was one of the few banks that didn’t need a bailout, and they took it so other “real problem” banks wouldn’t be singled out. I know this because I followed the financial news from the beginning since I had some money invested back then, and I couldn’t figure out why JP Morgan participated.
  • JPMorgan paid back the bailout money and with interest to boot. So the government made a decent amount of profit off of a bank that didn’t need the bailout anyway.
  • Even the Mayor agrees that Jamie Dimon brought more business in and caused more people to be employed than maybe any other banker in the modern day! When the mayor then says “ To go and picket him, I don’t know what that achieves. Jamie Dimon’s an honorable person working very hard. He pays his taxes.” is significant because here he is risking alienating a group of potential voters. But if it doesn’t make sense (attacking Jamie Dimon), then how can you support the action morally and ethically?

So the protesters are barking up the wrong tree with Jamie Dimon in particular. If the dislike him so much perhaps he’ll go become the CEO of some foreign bank where he would be appreciated. Since Jamie is one of the brightest and most honest individuals in banking, attacking those that are honest, good, hard working people seems kind of dumb to me, not to mention dangerous! You see these type of people are the ones that think outside of the box, do you really want to make an enemy of them?

I was going to end my entire discussion about this matter with yesterday’s post called: Sacrifices Made On the Road To Become A Millionaire, but after reading about the one company (and man) that did the right thing during the housing debacle, it seems like it needed commented on. After all, we know that the majority of the mass media isn’t going to point out this error and injustice being performed.

Think about it from Mr. Dimon’s perspective. He pays his taxes, give to charity, did the right things during the “Great Recession“, and literally outside of his home there is a crowd of protesters single him out?!? That makes about as much sense as protesting the NY firefighters because the twin towers went down from the plane explosions and fires. The fire fighters didn’t cause the fire, they were just trying to help (again like JP Morgan taking a bailout even though they didn’t need to).

I just don’t understand how people can protest a person without knowing the facts. Especially when the individual represent the best American has to offer and help fix the problem?…

How would you like it if people came to your house and protested because your house is green in color, or you have a motorcycle, or some other criteria that singles you out and makes you a target? Would you feel like you are being discriminated against? I know I would, and I would be very bitter about it to boot!

Another analogy would be to attack Peyton Manning because he makes so much money, even though you want to Colts to do well because you are a fan. I think Colt fans have seen what it’s like without Manning playing this season, and it’s not pretty. What these particular Americans and the White House won’t realize is the effects from a superstar CEO like Jamie Dimon not playing or going to play for another team (country)… It wouldn’t be pretty either…

To me, the wise advice “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you” comes into play. In a day when globalization threatens the core middle class in America, these protesters focus their destructive energy on the people busting their butts doing positive things in American? Instead shouldn’t they be focusing their energies on the governmental policies that have enabled the mass exodus of jobs (NAFTA) and other stupid “near-sighted” governmental policies that are real problems that should be addressed?

If you have a great base of knowledge on Jamie Dimon, please chime in. Perhaps I’m wrong about him, tell me your thoughts and if you think he should be a target or if you are like me (and the mayor of the New York), think Mr. Dimon was more of a hero during the financial crisis…

Bests,

MR

Update: I found this interesting excerpt on Wikepedia about Jamie Dimon where even President Obama compliments Jamie Dimon:

Following the acquisition of Washington Mutual by JPMorganChase, President Barack Obama had this to say about Dimon’s handling of the real-estate crash, credit crisis, and the banking collapse affecting corporations nationwide, including major financial institutions like Bank Of America, Citibank, and Wachovia:

“ You know, keep in mind, though there are a lot of banks that are actually pretty well managed, JPMorgan being a good example, Jamie Dimon, the CEO there, I don’t think should be punished for doing a pretty good job managing an enormous portfolio

Now how is that for ironic!

Sacrifices Made On the Road To Become A Millionaire

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I hate the way President Obama (and other democratic presidents of the past) single out millionaires, especially when he says that the rich need to “pay their fair share, just like everybody else“.  Now as a financial blogger, I know that the statistics shows that over 40% of the population don’t pay taxes as is.  So perhaps President Obama want the rich to pay all the taxes?

 

But let’s peal back the layers on President Obama’s millionaire onion, shall we?

  1. From the monumental book called “The Millionaire Next Door“, we all learned that 80% of those that are rich did not become so because of inheritance.  So that means that the majority of those that are rich come from the good old middle class group.  Both Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are prime examples!  Both were from what I would consider the Upper Middle Class, but definitely still part of the middle class.
  2. Those that succeeded in becoming millionaires (the road is full of those that have tried and failed), still sacrificed both time and experiences to get where they are today.  The millionaires that I know of put in the typical 70 to 80 hours a week working on their business, for years and years!  Forgoing all the fun stuff that the rest of us middle class folks enjoy.  And now that they are older and even have less opportunities to enjoy life like only the young can do, we are going to suck their hard earned, long hour worked, money from them?  Like a parasite or a leech?  It just doesn’t seem very fair does it.
  3. These same millionaires enable the middle class folk like you and I to earn a living and raise our families.  We (the middle class) do so while going on nice vacations and enjoying life in ways that the majority of the rest of the world can only dream of.  The millionaires are the sharp end of the stick and without them, we are just beating again the wall going nowhere instead of breaking through it.
  4. They buy our city fireworks, give money to charity, help with special project (like stadiums), and benefit their communities in other ways, and the country in general.  The millionaires are movers and shakers, they are catalyst that make the world a much better place.
  5. Being a millionaire, or blazing the trail to be a future millionaire isn’t a thing that should be frowned upon!  We should all be encouraged to become millionaires.
  6. Millionaires create corporations which in turn pay taxes.  So already the business pays taxes, then the businesses pay out the wages to it’s millionaire owners/creators  who also pay taxes on the money that has already been taxes at the corporate level (this is called double taxation).

In conclusion, I think it’s wrong to attack the doers of society!  Those that stuck their necks out, took the risk and were luck enough to succeed.  Such millionaires hired the middle classes along the way, dragging the middle class into a more prosperous state while growing their business (many of which pay taxes in addition to the millionaire).

The long hours that millionaires work means that they miss out on a lot of family activities.  This means that they miss soccer games and other activities that their kids may do because of the hours they put into their business.  This may be the ultimate sacrifice made by entrepreneurs trying to become rich…

In conclusion, I think politicians and naive protesters tend to just look only at the checkbook balance of millionaires and they don’t take into consideration the sacrifices and hard work that those millionaires had to pay to get rich.

What is your opinion?

MR

 

P.S.  If you are wealth please email me your story.  Not only would I love to read about your experiences, I would also like to know about the positive ways you impact your community and benefit society as a whole.  If your story is noteworthy, I’ll post it on my site.  Of course, I’ll keep it anonymous…

Continuous Growth Lesson Learned From My Son’s Soccer Tournament

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This year my son’s soccer team made it to the season soccer tournaments again.  It was a tough year for his team, and they ended the season right in the middle, with an equal number of wins and losses.  In the tournament, his team as the lowest seed, and that meant that they had to play the 1st seed (the best) team.  Now normally, you would think that such a low seeded team wouldn’t have a chance, especially since they are playing the top team first, but surprisingly they do.

The reasons we are optimistic is because they won their last three out of four games, really improving at the end of this season.  So while my son’s team is still the underdogs, they are very strong underdogs (both figuratively and physically in strength).  Okay, the game is starting…

Results of the First Game

It was like a dream come true, the score was 1 – 0, with my son’s team losing.  Then with less than thirty seconds, my son taps the ball in when there was a scramble for the ball in the opponent’s goal.  All his teammates were screaming and high-fiving him!  It was one of those moments in life that he will never forget (or at least I won’t).

Results of the final game for the Championship

In a grueling match, the final game for the championship was lost, barely. The final score was 1 – 0, this just shows how evenly each of the top four teams really were.  In the final two minutes, through a combination of skill (or luck), one of the best players on the other team hooked a high kick into the upper left corner of the goal post.  It was a beautiful kick and perfectly executed.  We were all sad, but that’s the way games go, sometimes miracle kicks like that land and win the game.  Personally, I was happy for the other team because they gave it their all and did a great job.  Yeah, I wish my son’s team won, but his team seemed happy being finalists (besides, they have already won a championship in the past).

Why this was Tournament was Special

The game was special because the previous superstars that were on my son’s team quit soccer or to a different organization.  Since the team depended on those two key players, we only won one game last season, and that was the very last game to boot.  It was disheartening after winning the championship the three seasons when the superstars were on the team.

So that fact that all the players have improved with the absense of any superstars on the team is a testament to how players all gain when the goal isn’t to pass the ball to one or two key players and then depending on them to do all of the scoring.  I have a feeling next year will be even more impressive than this year.

I think life is like this too.  If you have superstars dictating the show, you remain untested because you learn to depend on those particular superstars in life.  While this isn’t necessarily a horrible thing, it’s a bit bitter because you remain untested, not knowing how high you can fly.

What do you think?  Would you rather have a team with a few superstars and depend on them for everything, or would you rather keep continuously growing and improving your own game in life?

Personally, I want to keep reaching…

MR

 

Today, My Blog Is Two Years Old

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Time has gone by quickly!

Reflections on Being Two Years Old:

I’ve made a lot of mistakes with my blog adventure.  There was a time when just one reader would come by daily and read my blog.  She was what I thought of as my first real reader.  She too had a blog (SeeJaneGetRich . com, now defunct though) and I would reciprocate by visiting her blog also.  “Jane” was an incredible bright girl who was going to Law School at Brown University.  Surprisingly, I still find that I miss her…

For the first 5 months, I didn’t understand what was required to get google to see me in their search engine.  During that time, I hardly I got any hits from google at all.  I really didn’t understand the whole SEO thing, and nobody was there to help…  It was a lonely journey that just Jane and I were on!  Check out Jane’s twitter account (SeeJaneGetRich twitter Account) if you are curious about her.

Next came Sam.  One day a guy with an avatar called the “Financial Samurai” stopped by and left a comment.  This wasn’t the first time that I’ve seen the Financial Samurai name though.  Back then (before Yakezie) Sam visited a lot of pf bloggers and would leave comments often.  Excited, but weary (I even had comment spam back then), I visited his site and was amazed!

Lego Birthday Cake

Lego Birthday Cake

The looks of Sam’s site was breath-taking, much, much cooler than my own (and it still is).  I thought to myself  “Yeah, but is his content good, or is he all just flash”.  I read one article, then another article, and so on.  After a few articles later and after dive in his archive, it was obvious that Sam was a very talented writer and very entertaining to boot.  Sam is hugely responsive for me growing more quickly and the fact that I’m still blogging today!

How I’ve Grown

I’m not the same man who started this blogging journey, I’ve changed.  I’m definitely learned to take charge and forge my own path instead of going down the same path that everybody else follows.  I was nervous at first, but now I’m seasoned in this area too.  I’m very comfortable voicing my opinion and changing the course when I think things are wrong.

I’m more social, and much less introverted than before.  I actually was very excited to go to the 1st Financial Blogger Conference (we are all indebted to you Phil at ptmoney.com), and actually sad to leave so soon.

Surprisingly, the only thing that hasn’t really change much is my financial awareness and strategy.  In fact, I was recently commenting that I think that I’ve neglected my own finances a bit while I instead focus on blogging (how is that for a twist)…

My technical side is starting to finally come out more in my blogging.  I’ve been wanting to change my theme for a long time but I’ve been holding off.  Lately, I’ve been geeking out playing with all the cool features around blogging.  Hopefully I’ll have a new look by next year.

Where I Want To Go

I love blogging, but now it’s time to expand and make my hobby, my tech hobby too.  I want to try some things, to see how far I can push myself, to see how far I can reach up (from Pat Flynn’s speech at the finCon11).

I sometime talk about going outside of the box, but mostly I just look outside of the box and tell others when I see.  They sometimes do what I see while I sit safely inside of my box.  But now it’s time to take a step out, no, not jump out but taking that critical first step.  A journey of a thousand steps begin with a single step (by Confucius).

I find that once I take such a step, it’s hard for me to stop, kind of like the unstoppable motion of the Juggernaut from Marvel Comics.

Future Giveway:

Yes in celebration, I’m going to be giving away a best buy gift card in the near future.

Bests,

MR

 

P.S. My blogoversary was on Oct. 7.