What is Wealth ? Am I Striving Simply to "Make Money"
Understand what money is. Money is result of the time and effort you expend in your livelihood. You are trading time, effort and expertise to get a commodity that you can trade with someone else to get what you want - whether it is an actual product or a service from the other person. Money is not always wealth.
The concept of wealth is as old as human kind and just as universal. Two examples.
First of all what is the most lucrative product that was lucrative two thousand years ago and is guaranteed to be the most lucrative product in another five thousand years. The answer is jeweler. It combines all – ego, the lust for and power over women and portable wealth all in one. Secondly the joke is told about space ships that arrive from outer space. The aliens or spacemen come out of their craft covered in gold and gemstones. The amazed earthlings ask “Do all your inhabitants dress like that. Are these minerals so abundant on your planet that you can dress like that?” The aliens answer. No only the wealthy ones.
Wealth is the fundamental point of the exercise. That is the power to do what you want. Wealth again is the goods or the services that you want. Whether it is a large home, education for your children, travel, and automobiles etc .etc.
Wealth is the item you yearn for not money. But the question is if wealth is the end result or the result at all why do people always speak about “making money”. It is out of sync - money is a means of easy handling or transport of wealth – portable wealth so to speak not wealth itself. While they may appear to go hand in hand and are the same in real terms money is not wealth. Thus if you only speak or act to “make money” you will never get real wealth or become “wealthy”.
Money is the side effect of specialization so to speak. Your product or service must be in enough demand that someone else will want it – an awful lot at that. If you are living in bumpkin land it is highly unlikely that the local fisherman is going to be interested in your services as a mandolin manufacturer.
The question is if you are interested in building your dream cottage in this coastal area how can you entice these local fishermen to either trade land with you for your abode or provide the services of building it for you.
The solution lies in the facts that as societies become more specialized in the production and service of goods and those individual areas of production and services are parceled out to specialists that trade becomes a two step shuffle. Instead of trading mandolins directly for that land or cottage carpentry you trade those mandolins with a middleman for some other commodity or service that you can then trade back to the fisherman, in this case for what you want, - a lakeside lot, lumber and other building supplies and carpentry services to build your dream cottage.
What used to be done in actual physical exchange and middleman exchange with physical forms of wealth – be it precious metal such as gold and silver or valuable gemstones is now done with paper which represents these holdings of wealth.
Thus trade works. This is the basis of our barter system based on trade. Foolish uninformed people may think that they are working for is simple money and what business does is “make money”. Money is just the intermediate step- just the middleman – the middle step – for what people want and desire.
It is the goods and services you want to make you wealthy not to simply “make money”.
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