Mark,
Thank you. Like most other people, I want to be rich BUT I am not willing to do whatever it takes to get there. Here is why.
My Grand Father was born in 1911. He was one of 11 children and he lived on a farm. He dropped out of school after fourth grade so he could work on the farm and help support his family.
At the start of the Depression, he had $50 in a bank which went out of business. That was basically all the cash he had and it was gone.
After he married my Grand Mother in 1940, he had a decent job working for a paint manufacturer. Even though he was starting a family, he still sent part of his paycheck to his Mother to help support her.
In the late 1940's he bought his own farm. During the week he would work at the paint factory during the day and then come home and work his farm.
In the late 1970's, when he was retired and when prices for farm land skyrocketed, he sold most of his acreage for a large sum of money. At that time I was about 10 years old.
I was in awe of the amount of money he had and was asking him what he was going to buy me (and my sister and cousins) and what he was going to spend it on. He said he was just going to save it (he put the money in long term CD's at 10% interest) so that he and my Grand Mother would have money to live on for the rest of their lives and not have to worry where their next meal was going to come from. (My Grand Mother is going to be 91 soon, she is living in her own home and is still living off the money my Grand Father saved back then).
He then sat me down and told me his life story and what he had been through. He also told me this, "it is OK to want to make a lot of money and have nice, fancy things BUT don't lose yourself in that pursuit and don't sell your soul going after those things".
He blamed greedy people for the Depression and bank failures and for him having to work long hours all those years. He came to the conclusion that some people "lost theirselves" during the Roaring 20's. He thought that because some people got greedy, that because they didn't follow the rules or the law, because they risked too much and didn't see what was happening around them they and the rest of the country paid for it.
When this past recession hit and the reasons behind it started coming out, I thought of my Grand Father and his story. I wished he was still alive so that I could talk to him about what was going on.
David
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