Even the millionaires are confused...

Literally just talked to a millionaire tycoon kinda guy in his late 80's. (I work at a hotel, I get to talk to lots of kinds of people) He owns a bunch of real estate and anyhow, I thought I'd ask him about the current situation of the US economy.

Specifically "Do you think the economy is going to recover, or get worse?"

His response "With the stock market, and everything being so confusing, I just can't tell."

So even someone who has 50 plus years of making crazy profits doesn't have a clue about how it's going to turn out. He said it's never been like this before in his lifetime.

I expected a lot of things, but a simple "I don't know" wasn't in there. You learn something new every day.

He's a millionaire tycoon......

not an economist.

Originally posted by Rockdisjoint
He's a millionaire tycoon......

not an economist.

edit on 10-11-2011 by Rockdisjoint because: (no reason given)

Oh absolutely. It's just nice to know they're as clueless as us right now.

Originally posted by thejlxc

Originally posted by Rockdisjoint
He's a millionaire tycoon......

not an economist.

edit on 10-11-2011 by Rockdisjoint because: (no reason given)

Oh absolutely. It's just nice to know they're as clueless as us right now.

Speak for yourself.

I'm not clueless.

He told you what he tells ever "worker class" person. I am clueless...Hope he gave you a better tip than that! LOL

Originally posted by Rockdisjoint
He's a millionaire tycoon......

not an economist.

edit on 10-11-2011 by Rockdisjoint because: (no reason given)

He's a millionaire tycoon......

not a billionaire.

Fixed.

I'm certainly not a millionaire but I do come from a family which has a few. One of which is more like a billionaire as he was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company for over two decades and sits on the board of several other Fortune 500 companies.

Okay, now to my point. Actually they aren't as confused as they are figuring ways to use the money they have to make more money on the situation. It's capitalism at it's core. Make money off of opportunities.

The current situation in our economy is dismal for most of us but there is a segment of our wealthy who are making money off this mess. These people will make money off anything they can. They have the power of large amounts of capital to use. It takes money to make money and they're doing it.

Originally posted by thejlxc

His response "With the stock market, and everything being so confusing, I just can't tell."

He is in his 80's, and says everything is confusing. Perhaps you could get a better answer if you didn't ask a millionaire that quite possibly has "old timers."

Perhaps you should have segwayed into the conversation by way of determining if he even remembered what his last meal was.

you said he was a real estate guy. I've seen plenty of very wealthy real estate investors who aren't anywhere near as savvy, or successful, in other areas of investing.

One of my clients made his millions (hundreds of them) in real estate. when he sensed the end of the ride back in the 80's, he got out of almost all of his holdings, saving the very best. He then went on to invest in companies that are extremely well known here in the states. When I asked him if he was going to get back into real estate any time soon, he said he saw the market taking another 1 to 3 years before real estate became enticing again. When I asked him about the stock market, he told me he didn't have a clue, that he relied on investment advisors for that. He can pinpoint a specific company, target it for takeover and make a small fortune in his attempt to buy it (which he did last year) and, yet, he hasn't a clue where the overal markets will go.

too much volatility, too many unknowns out there. I doubt if there's anyone out there that can tell you, with any real accuracy, when things will get better but there are plenty of people who will tell you it won't be any time soon, that we will have to watch as the euro-disaster unfolds etc.

I have spoken to a handful of millionaires, mostly business owners. On the small scale a lot of these guys seem to blame it on Obama and Liberals, and I have had two actually tell me that they were holding out on hiring anyone until "Obama is gone" in order to ensure a Republican win and possible profits from a more business friendly environment. One guy said he even received an email from some conservative group telling him to not hire anyone but to instead donate to the cause as an "investment" for their business future. I have yet to track down such a correspondence nor was he able to tell me which organization it was from. It does create the possibility of a broader conspiracy to purposefully sabotage any economic recovery for political gain.

I had had another tell me that if Obama does win again, that it will destroy the economy and they will be selling off their business and cashing out to cash into hard assets. So the mentality is that it is Democrats fault and only Republicans can save us.

I will disclose that I also live in the bible belt, so it is indeed VERY CONSERVATIVE where I am.

reply to post by DJM8507


I've listened to a lot of my high net worth clients complain about Obama, not blaming him for the whole situation but certainly saying he's made things far worse.

I've also noticed that many of my clients that touted Obama as the man to fix it all, no longer seem to have backed him at all.


Of course, most of my clients also complained about Bush too.

There seems to be a misconception here that millionaires are a homogeneous group and that somehow they must have their collective finger on the pulse of economic reality.
Not so.
A fool can inherit millions, and it often happens much to the delight of immoral opportunists also called "millionaires."
Millionaires are our congressmen and women. Totally clueless about economics and business in general, but very gifted at acquiring assets and fooling clueless people.
One entrepreneur out of a hundred will look like a genius when often s/he was merely doing the right thing at the right time. Another may actually BE a genius. Hard to tell the difference.

reply to post by Rockdisjoint

he's right though, you come off as pretty clueless.

reply to post by thejlxc


This reminds me of when I worked for a F-500 company and our district had a meeting with the CEO .. I asked him if he felt a Recession was coming (this was in early 2008) He went on a 15 min discussion about how no way, no how, was it remotely possible a recession was coming. And to prove it the corporation acquired a massive block of land, towers etc to build one of the largest corporate centers in the State. 7 months later it's announced the real estate market crashes.. guess where we invested our portfolio? lol..

Money doesn't make a man smart. In fact most people become obscenely wealthy through dedication, luck, hard work or entirely by accident. Few become wealthy simply through intelligence. And even fewer delve into the boring World of economics.

Originally posted by Rockpuck
reply to post by thejlxc

 

Money doesn't make a man smart. In fact most people become obscenely wealthy through dedication, luck, hard work or entirely by accident. Few become wealthy simply through intelligence. And even fewer delve into the boring World of economics.

Fact is the very wealthy in America are typically born into it. Once you have a large sum of money at your disposal the accumulation of more is rather easily accomplished. It is those who fall into great wealth and squander it on the frivolous who tend to lose what they had without any idea how to make it back. Such a true statement indeed!

reply to post by americanbuffalo1


Actually, the real fact is that 70% of individuals in the millionaire + brackets are SELF MADE, not inheritors.

www.consumerismcommentary.com...

Some interesting results form a survey of wealthy people in the study..

Here are some interesting statistics I pulled from an article discussing the survey results.

36% of earners and 27% of heirs are concerned about an economic recession.
77% of earners and 67% of heirs believe they have a lot of control of their financial future.
39% of earners and 21% of heirs are moderate or risky investors.
75% of earners and 50% of heirs have less stress thanks to their wealth.
51% of earners and 33% of heirs believe their wealth has led to increases of happiness.
Heirs are twice as likely to believe that their wealth causes more problems that it solves.
37% of earners and 25% of heirs believe that luck played a major role in their financial success.

You'll also see reading between the lines, self made, the vast majority, are far more clueless about finances than their inheritors .. who are normally taught at a young age about their finances and family fortune and move on to prestigious schools.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Excellent info! I guess I should have said in my circle of those I know are born into wealth. Thanks for the stats!

Thanks for all the various replies. I was just sharing something, as it had just happened, and I post from work. Anyhow, yeah, I didn't expect much when asking him. I didn't expect "I have no idea" It threw me a bit heh. He came back and clarified that he felt it was "Obama's" fault after I had posted the initial post.

So yeah, it's Obama's fault. It's so nice to have useless figureheads to blame, on all levels of society apparently.

People like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are brilliant. All of their products are inferior. Just very easy and fun to use.

Originally posted by Rockdisjoint
He's a millionaire tycoon......

not an economist.

edit on 10-11-2011 by Rockdisjoint because: (no reason given)

Economists can't predict the future, but they can explain the obvious in painful detail. The reason some economic predictions are right is because there are so many different economists making many different predictions.

Who could have foretold the market would be at the same place today, that it started this year at?