This truth I know is a fact of life. You,...yes sir,…yes ma’am, will build a dream with the use of your life. You will either build your own dream,…or you will build someone else’s dream.
Now the hard reality is that if you choose to spend your entire life building another man’s dream, I guarantee you will live to regret it. Why? Because, you will eventually come to the end of your own productive years and sadly realize that there are very few, if any, real benefits and blessings left over from your long term efforts for you and your family. Most all of the productivity, blessings, and real financial benefits have accrued to and gone into the dreams and families of the owners,….not the employees. Now sadness comes crashing down around you. You have used up most all of your productive years and have very little to show for it. It is then too late to do much about changing things.
I would hope that the answer to any question you may have relating to the words I just communicated would be rather obvious. Just in case it isn’t, allow me to state the same thought a little differently.
There is only room for one dream in any business operation. That, of course, would be the owner’s dream. The person who actually owns and is responsible for the operations of the business. The owner is the person who takes the risks, invests the capital, assumes total responsibility, and operates the entity in an attempt to generate a profit.
The employee is simply the one who rents his life to his employer. The employee is the one who trades or exchanges his own labor hours for a paycheck…the amount of which, by the way, has been proven to never be enough to allow the employee to live the full manner and way that he truly desires to live. That is a truth that is supported by another truth which is that you will never be paid what you are actually worth…why? Because you are worth too much! You are simply too valuable to pay totally what you are worth. Consequently, you will only be paid the minimum amount that it costs to replace you or your position on the open labor market.
The business owner is the one who hires the other people to work for his or her operation. He or she is the one who bears all of the risk to own and operate a profitable business. Therefore he or she is the one who gets all of the real and lasting benefits from the business operations. That is the way all business is designed to work. All of the other people, regardless of their position, purpose, or place within the business operation are all working for the owner and therefore are building the owner’s dream…not their own! That is their personal choice: owner or employee. No one forces them to be what they have chosen to be.
I sincerely hope you do not see this discussion as some sort of criticism or “put-down” to anyone who is presently an employee. Rather I hope it enlightens you and plants a seed of opportunity in the fertile grounds of your own mind. Hey,…what if you began to start seeking to find a business of your own?….What a thought,…what a great idea! After all, you live in America. You live in the Land of Opportunity!
Now I am not saying that there will be absolutely nothing for those who work for the employer,…I am only saying that after all operating expenses have been covered, all debt serviced, all payroll and other taxes satisfied, all interest costs paid up, and all healthcare cost covered, and finally the owners revenue and retirement costs paid,…there will not be very much left for the employees. Most usually what is left over is not enough to permit their full enjoyment of their retirement years. In other words, most will have to continue to work until their death, or at least way beyond their expected initial retirement date.
Based upon my previous three years of employment in the United States Army and my six years working experience with a major CPA firm, and my one and one half years experience with a private real estate investment company, I never once observed an instance where the owner of the business ever paid any one employee as much or more than he paid himself. This is exactly why you will see 75+ year old men and women waiting tables or performing other entry level jobs. They ran out of money before they ran out of life. They lived longer than they planned and funded to live. Please do not let that happen to you!
It is so terribly easy for a person to get all “caught-up” in the busy-ness and excitement of a growing and increasing business enterprise. When growth is rapidly occurring and revenues are sky-rocketing everyone involved…owner and employees…are all excited and working at maximum capacity. There seems to be no end to the future potential of such a business enterprise. Salaries are good, worker benefits are all in place, they “say” there is a good company supported retirement plan and related benefits, and the chance for future promotions is very good. WOW! All systems are a go! Keep going, keep working hard,…it will all be worth it “some day” in the future. A year goes by, then another year, then a decade, then thirty years….and now the point of truth has to be reckoned with concerning the employee, his age, and his usefulness to the firm.
Listen to me….no company in the world went into business for the sole and express purpose of taking care of their employees, even the most valued ones. The company exists for one valued purpose…to provide a good rate of return on investment to the stockholders who initially funded the establishment of the business in its beginning!
However, as is always the case, things don’t stay perpetually on the grow. All business runs in cycles. And when business turns down or difficult financial times slow growth, the related down-turn causes lots of cut backs, reductions, and cost-cutting measures to be implemented by the business owners. That most always includes reductions of employees and/or their salaries, promotions, and other related benefits.
Down-turns are a consequence of national economic growth which is never under the control of an employee. The working person, the employee, is the one who bears the brunt of ignorant and irresponsible political decisions, foolish laws, and other regulations, and irresponsible political actions. It is these things that negatively impact the workers’ take-home pay and their related lifestyle. Healthcare costs continue to rise and take more cash flow out of the employees paycheck. Sadly they are locked into company health insurance plans for the most part and are helpless to protect themselves.
Deductions from a worker’s paycheck seem all too often to be rising much faster than is their salary. Consequently the net amount of the worker’s paycheck just keeps getting less and less. The overall net effect is more pressure on the family…more stress on the primary income provider…and most sadly, more destructive pressure on the marriage and the family. None of it is good!
I cannot speak for another person, but it just seems to me to be complete foolishness and ignorance for anyone here in America to willingly place one’s whole future existence in the hands of inexperienced, uneducated, or unknowing and therefore unqualified elected politicians. The politicians are the ones who make the laws that limit, restrict, and strangle business operations within the boundaries of our own country. The politicians are the ones who make and amend the income tax laws of our nation. The politicians are the only ones who can legally change the policies and their related laws to assist the worker and the general population of our nation and its related financial affairs. Americans continuously prove and re-prove that we don’t seem to learn anything from history as we just keep sending the same fools back to congress who have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that they are incapable of properly governing us and our country and its physical and financial affairs.
Rather than simplifying our laws, reducing taxes and other limiting regulations, thereby increasing the earned revenues of our business operations, Congress seems to always do the exact opposite. Ours here in America is a Free Enterprise System of economics. Our entire system of economic values is based upon small business operations running, thriving, and driving our overall national economy.
The better our small businesses can operate and produce profits, the higher will be the salaries they can pay to their employees, the more money the population will have to spend, the more taxes will consequently be paid to the government to fund government rendered services and benefits….the better off all workers will be.
This is not rocket science. This is free enterprise economics 101!
The sad, but oh so true, fact of the matter is that we have men and women,…politicians,…running our country that have little, if any, knowledge and understanding about running successful business, about the free enterprise system of economics and how it was set up to properly run, and about how to earn and then properly handle money. Because they are ignorant of these “basics” they all too often simply do (vote) as they are told to vote by their party line position or by their same party more senior political colleagues.
Fact: The government does not have to ever show a profit from operations. Deficit funding seems to be the mode of choice. Whenever it (the government) needs more money to fund its operations, it just passes a new appropriations Bill and gives itself the authority to print more money backed by nothing of value like gold or silver, and gives itself the money it really does not have to enable itself to continue to spend and tax the general population.
The results? More and greater national financial deficits, higher inflation, increased taxation, overall loss of value of assets,…and the most dangerous of all,….unrest among the people.
If our politicians ran a business like they run our own government, the business would go bankrupt and disappear. The politician would be fired and left high and dry with no income or other means of support!
And yet we willingly elect and/or re-elect these incapable ones to run our country and its system of economics. No wonder we are in such a mess.
We are forewarned by God in The Book of Proverbs that “If a blind man leads another blind man, then they both wind up in a ditch.” America is indeed in a ditch!
Any fool can tear down something someone else has labored to create. It takes a real quality person to have a good idea and then take the idea to full fruition and create it into a great blessing and benefit to themselves and to their fellow man.
Productivity and Reward are, and have always been, the secret keys that have unlocked the doors of prosperity.
The fact is, the more productive you are,….the happier you will be.
That’s it,…period!
Peace and Love to All of You…………….Poppa Bear