第14章(7 / 8)

le ideas. Yet, if you listen to Ray Kroc, you are still not minding your own business. These ideas all still focus on the income column and will only help a person become more financially secure if the additional money is used to purchase income-generating assets.

The primary reason the majority of the poor and middle class are fiscally conservative-which means. "I can't afford to take risks"-is that they have no financial foundation. They have to cling to their jobs. They have to play it safe.

When downsizing became the "in" thing lo do, millions of workers | found out their largest so-called asset, their home, was eating them alive, j Their asset, called a house, still cost them money every month. Their car, another "asset," was eating them alive. The golf clubs in the garage that cost $1,000 were not worth 51,000 anymore. Without job security, they had nothing to fall back on. What they thought were assets could not help them survive in a time of financial crisis.

1 assume most of us have filled out a credit application for a banker to buy a house or to buy a car. It is always interesting to look at the "net worth'1 section. It is interesting because of what accepted banking and accounting practices allow a person to count as assets.

One day, to get a loan, my financial position did not look too good. So I added my new golf clubs, my art collection, books, stereo, television, Armani suits, wristwatches, shoes and other personal effects to boost the number in the asset column.

But I was turned