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  1. Originally Posted by lordsmurf View Post
    They made their fortunes off the backs of their employees ... These people are mostly parasites, feeding off others, often destroying lives to make their bucks ... Taylor Swift is a b!tch. A total cvnt ... WSJ is a conservative rag/tabloid these days ...
    Wow.

    Must be a bad day for you. I know you're dealing with a lot. I hope tomorrow is better. Too much anger for me to deal with.

  2. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    Thanks Lordsmurf for the accurate analysis, Could't have said it any better. So the idea to become a billionaire from thin air is unlikely to happen, even people who won hundred of millions overnight winning a lottery couldn't become billionaires for several different reasons the most common one is lack of financial knowledge, some of them even lost it all and went back to zero.

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    Originally Posted by dellsam34 View Post
    Thanks Lordsmurf for the accurate analysis, Could't have said it any better.
    Thanks Lordsmurf.

  4. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by johnmeyer View Post
    Must be a bad day for you. I know you're dealing with a lot.
    Bad day? Perhaps.
    But even on a good day, my stance will not change:
    - Vulture capitalists have ruined countless lives in the pursuit of money.
    - Taylor Swift is a spoiled snot, an unbearable narcissist.
    - WSJ is the written version of Fox News, aka mostly propaganda in the past decade.

    It is what it is.

    Originally Posted by dellsam34 View Post
    the most common one is lack of financial knowledge, some of them even lost it all and went back to zero.
    This again comes back to socioeconomic circles. And/or vulturistic greed.

    If you are lower class, or often even middle class, can can't ask your buddy, "Hey, where should I invest this?" Odds are the answer is really stupid ("give it to me!"), or just clueless ("invest in the stock market?"). So you instead must turn to financial "advisers", many of whom prey upon your ignorance to enrich themselves. Advisors often use client money to enrich themselves, not necessarily for the client's best interest.

    These days, I find that sports players are the main rags-to-riches stories, with either poor caribbean kids getting a shot in the big leagues (MLB), or kids from the projects suddenly find themselves flush with cash (NFL). But again, windfalls, especially the NFL, and many stories end really badly. Next is lottery winners, many of whom are older/elderly, and become victims to their own friends and families. It's all really quite sad.

    Only if you come from wealth do you have the knowledge/tools/relationships to help well-manage said wealth. It's why windfalls often end badly, enormously bad and stupid decisions are made.

    I cannot say it enough: socioeconomic circles. It determines not just wealth, but health, and education (and thus 2nd/3rd/etc familial generational continuation of the socioeconomic circle).

    This is a complex topic, I could go on, but I think I've made my point in the thread.

    To circle back around to the OP:

    You want to make money being a director? Great! I wish you well! Invite me to your 1st blockbuster premiere! But you need a blend of luck, talent, and entering/navigating the right social circles. Patience needed, as it can take decades to do what you want. Sometimes it's a challenge to even know what/where/who those socioeconomic circles are. You don't know what you don't know.
    Last edited by lordsmurf; 27th Nov 2019 at 11:42.

  5. Normally I don't respond to these rants, but I'm going to do just that, for a second time, because the thinking expressed is driving a lot of changes in our country which actually hurts the very people (those without huge wealth) that it is supposed to help.

    I've spent my entire career around entrepreneurs in the electronics and computer industries. I've give countless speeches, founded my own company, and helped a lot of people get their companies off the ground. I am now somewhat old, and more or less retired.

    Those people posting here have not had the benefit of this experience.

    I have seen a few get rich, many make a living, and quite a few fail. Your characterizations of those who succeed are based on a lot of bad information and lots of envy, stoked by politicians and people on the outs posting in Internet forums who want a scapegoat to blame for their own situation in life.

    Most of the current rich bashing (in this forum and in political circles) is nothing more than envy, one of the seven deadly sins. Envy is an ugly affliction which, at its core, is a way to make one person feel better by diminishing the other individual. In this case, that would be done by taking away the rich person's money, status, and power. Envy drives the fascination with the rich and famous when they stumble and fall.

    However, the reason envy is such an ugly thing and is rightly classified in traditional teachings as a sin is that it actually doesn't improve the envious person who tries to harm the person who is the object of their envy. It is entirely destructive, with no counterbalancing benefit.

    You can hate on Taylor Swift all you want but, at the end of the day -- even if you somehow succeed -- you will not be one penny richer, wiser, or happier. It does nothing for you, other than make you more miserable.

    As for the totally wrong idea that people who get rich have money already, not one of the almost 100 companies I saw during that decade I consulted with startups included anyone with more than a few dollars in his or her pocket. Many (almost half) were new immigrants (mostly Asian and Indian) who had the additional handicap of not understanding our culture and language.

    Finally, if you haven't started your own company (and I'm not talking about working at home as a contract programmer, or running a web site from home), you have absolutely no clue about how enormous the risks those of us who have started a company from scratch have taken. I started my first company on October 1, 1985 with two other guys. We met that first day around my dining room table. We did not have any money from anyone, other than what we had in the bank. I had enough stashed away so that I could pay the mortgage and eat for about one year. My two co-founders only had enough for about three months. So, we borrowed money from family members so that we could all three manage to keep going for twelve months. We had just quit our jobs the previous day.

    The health care from our previous employer would continue for only thirty days, after which we would not have health insurance.

    We risked it all.

    And so did most of the other fellow entrepreneurs I came to know. Those who managed to grab the brass ring and who were rewarded with significant wealth, got it through massive risk, unimaginable hard work and, of course, real talent.


    The rise of socialism in this country, fueled by hatred of rich people, is very troubling. I'm old enough to remember what socialism and communism does to people and societies. I remember when the Berlin wall went up in 1961 because people were so desperate to escape places where all rewards for hard work were removed. In those places, the rulers operated according to this mantra: "From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs" -- Karl Marx.

    Several years ago I videotaped the funeral of a 106-year-old Russian woman who was born in Russia under the Czar, and escaped as a little girl from the oppression of the Soviet regime after the 1917 revolution. The Soviet Union was based on hatred of the rich and privileged, something expressed so clearly in this thread.

    I wish everyone could see that funeral video to hear the stories of her family's escape. In a similar vein, my wife, a ballerina, performed with a group back in 1981 run by dancers who had defected from the Soviet Union. I heard their stories first-hand. They left everything behind in order to escape.


    So, to the OP, you should pursue your dream, and you should definitely try to make big money. No one can predict whether you will make that money, but you definitely should try. You will fail along the way. Keep going. Don't give up. Most entrepreneurs don't succeed with their original plan, and many often fail several times before coming up with something that works.

    You can do it.

  6. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    The question is, Are you a billionaire? If not what's your point?
    The title of the thread specifies a billionaire, if it was a millionaire it would have been a different discussion, still no one here ruled out the possibility of being one, we just said it's easier if you have a head start.

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    For those in the US, Happy Thanksgiving Everybody! Some of us will probably have this same friendly discussion with family in a couple of days.

  8. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by ponens View Post
    For those in the US, Happy Thanksgiving Everybody! Some of us will probably have this same friendly discussion with family in a couple of days.
    Oh boy, good luck man, just don't mention Bernie you will be fine.

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    Originally Posted by dellsam34 View Post
    The question is, Are you a billionaire? If not what's your point?
    The title of the thread specifies a billionaire, if it was a millionaire it would have been a different discussion, ...
    Generally speaking, very few are going to earn a billion dollars "pulling it on regular income and paying regular income taxes on it".

    It usually comes through ownership. I guess we need more "ontapanures" and less wage workers.

    https://streamable.com/fr96d

  10. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    If this site were about politics or economics, you would probably get sick of the frequency of my rants.
    If you want to figure out where I stand on all that, it is pretty self-evident if you can read between the lines.

    However, one of the things I like about this place is that it (usually) steers clear of those topics.

    My take for the OP:
    if you are trying to approach being a billionaire by making movies, you are going about it the wrong way...there are much more direct and relatively surefire ways of acquiring wealth.
    If, on the other hand, you are trying to make movies and expect it to make you a billionaire, you are approaching it with the wrong attitude, and will very likely fail. Those who have truly been massively successful at moviemaking not only understand the underlying business of it (and know how to play the game), but more importantly, they love making movies, they understand the craft & science of it, and they have talent and inspiration. Without that, the money part would be a long, unrewarding slog. Doesn't matter which market you are in or what breaks you might get. Plus, you would be muddying the waters for those who really belong in this field. If that is your reasoning, don't do it.
    If you truly love making video (of any sort), just learn, and do, and it will be its own reward. And you might also financially succeed at it (though the odds are way against you).

    Scott

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    Originally Posted by Cornucopia View Post
    However, one of the things I like about this place is that it (usually) steers clear of those topics.
    Probably almost everyone here would agree with that.

    Originally Posted by Cornucopia View Post
    If you truly love making video (of any sort), just learn, and do, and it will be its own reward.
    Doing anything, especially learning, just for the intrinsic value, rather than as an instrument towards some other end, almost always is the best initial motive. And often also produces the most value in the end.

    Unfortunately, much of the world's population does not have the luxury of spending the time currency of their existence on endeavors guided by such lofty motivation.

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    Ramsey555 seems to have been banned. I noticed that yesterday.
    Ignore list: hello_hello, tried, TechLord, Snoopy329

  13. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by johnmeyer View Post
    founded my own company, and helped a lot of people get their companies off the ground.
    Hey, neat! We may still have a copy of Ventura from the late 80s, complete with the 5.25" floppies. Maybe.

    Your characterizations of those who succeed are based on a lot of bad information and lots of envy, stoked by politicians and people on the outs posting in Internet forums who want a scapegoat to blame for their own situation in life.
    At some point, for too many, success is overcome by greed. I'm all for success, but I'm not for paying employees peanuts while CEOs/execs get $M+ salary. No man is an island, they didn't do it alone, they don't deserve to take all the rewards. When you have so much money that you don't even know how to spend it, and the employees are so underpaid that they don't have money to eat, we have a problem.

    Most of the current rich bashing (in this forum and in political circles) is nothing more than envy,
    Um, no. If I suddenly found myself Richie Rich rich, it wouldn't change my opinion that society is flawed. And I'd start with education, to attempt to desegregate socioeconomic barriers. We don't need 11-12 years of English classes in gradeschool, we need more life skills.

    You can hate on Taylor Swift ... or happier.
    I don't hate her. On the contrary, I'm quite indifferent. She could sell another $B album, or get hit by a bus, and I'd really not notice much, what she does matters not to me. She garners my attention mostly due to news blips, most of which are her having temper tantrums. I saw yet another just today in The Week.

    socialism and communism
    FYI, those aren't the same. Not even close. Should not even be in the same sentence.

    Several years ago I videotaped the funeral of a 106-year-old Russian woman who was born in Russia under the Czar, and escaped as a little girl from the oppression of the Soviet regime after the 1917 revolution.
    I wish everyone could see that funeral video to hear the stories of her family's escape. In a similar vein, my wife, a ballerina, performed with a group back in 1981 run by dancers who had defected from the Soviet Union. I heard their stories first-hand. They left everything behind in order to escape.
    Definitely seems to be some interesting stories.

    So, to the OP
    He was banned. Perhaps time to close this thread?
    Last edited by lordsmurf; 27th Nov 2019 at 12:09. Reason: Typos

  14. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
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    Too much politics for me. Closed.




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