Why Entrepreneurship?
For most of our young lives we are asked “what” it is we want to “do” when we ‘grow up.’ Because we can only make decisions based on the information in front of us, most of us dutifully go through the educational ranks and find our niche in an office somewhere doing what we think will make us feel happy or fulfilled. But we rarely think beyond that. The greatest societies in history are the ones who think in terms of collectivism - living for a vision or mission that benefits society at large beyond our own individual interests. But in the Age Of The Individual, and in an age of selective education where we are not taught how to think for ourselves but rather how to regurgitate information that is deemed worthy of being regurgitated, most of us happily coast blindly in ignorance while getting upset about things we don’t truly understand because we were never taught what reality looks like in those arenas - politics, money, etc.
So what does reality look like and why does it matter?
Here are a few key pieces of society that influence much of what we do, and influence much of why I am so passionate about educating and mentoring others in different ways of thinking that influence the decisions and choices we make.
The Education System
The General Education Board was created in 1902 by John D. Rockefeller and is responsible for shaping much of what we know today as our ‘Education System.’There was much controversy about why he created this organization. Some people say he created The General Education board to improve education. Others say he created it to hijack the educational system of the United States. Those critical of Carnegie and Rockefeller believe that before the rich and powerful - people like Rockefeller and Carnegie - could gain further control over Americans and the wealth of America, the American spirit had to be weakened and Americans made dependent upon the government for financial support. Rockefeller’s education board proclaimed that they were taking young people out of the Agrarian Age and into the Industrial Age and training them for the Industrial Age. And they did do that. Yet, if you look at what’s going on in America and the world today, it’s not hard to see that Americans are becoming more dependent upon the government for life support. America today is less a democracy and more of an Oligarchy, a country with a few extremely rich, powerful people and a growing gap between the rich and everyone else. In many ways, America is becoming more like modern-day Russia, a land of Oligarchs, than the democratic America our founders envisioned.
There was a time when it was illegal to teach a slave how to write. Not much is changed with how governments eager to gain more power selectively allow its population to remain ignorant. Many college history professors tell their charges that the books they will be using in the class are "objective." But stop and ask yourself: Is it possible to write a history book without a particular point of view? There are billions of events which take place in the world each day. To think of writing a complete history of a nation covering even a year is absolutely incredible.
The purpose of modern education was never to take the middle class and make them rich. That, in my opinion, is why there is no financial education in our schools.
Without financial education, how would the average person know that the banks steal their wealth via their savings? They wouldn’t. A saver’s wealth is heisted via a banking mechanism known as the Fractional Reserve System. The concept of fractional reserve banking is thousands of years old. Why it isn’t taught in school is no mystery to me. It’s the way banks make money. And it’s not pretty.
When people wonder why the gap between the rich and everyone else is growing, some of the blame can be placed on our banks, the fractional reserve system, and of course, the lack of financial education in schools.
Many people believe that paying taxes is patriotic. Yet, if you study American history you’ll learn that the American Revolution began in 1773 as a tax protest known as the Boston Tea Party. For years, America was pretty much a tax-free or low-tax nation. In 1943, during World War II, the US Government passed the Current Tax Payment Act. The government needed money to fight the war and needed tax revenue to pay for the war. Until 1943 the government had to wait for taxpayers to pay their taxes. To solve this problem, the Current Tax Payment Act was passed. Once the vampires had control of the blood bank, why would they just stop once the war ended?
The injustice is lack of financial education in our schools. People go to school for a better life, yet few learn anything about money. The injustice is financial ignorance. Today, almost everyone in every part of the world is having their wealth stolen via the financial system, via their money. And most do not even realize it. Their work is stolen via their work, savings, and investments in the stock market.
One quite naturally assumes that the graduated income tax would be opposed by the wealthy. The fact is that many of the wealthiest Americans supported it. Some, no doubt, out of altruism and because, at first, the taxes were very small. But others backed the scheme because they already had a plan for permanently avoiding both the income tax and the subsequent inheritance tax. Taxing the “wealthy” simply means taxing high paid employees, not the truly wealthy who actually understand the tax laws and know how to avoid them.
The paycheck is one of the most powerful tools ever created by man. The person who signs the paycheck has the power to enslave another person’s mind, body and soul. When slavery was abolished, the rich created paychecks.
Many people struggle with life simply because they are not taught success principles in school, like the power of your own words. As a result, most people adopt the vernacular of those around them and use words that dis-empower them, making them weak, confused, fearful, sometimes even angry.
Instead of saying “I can’t afford it,” ask yourself, “How can I afford it?” and challenge our brains to expand our means. The words we choose and use either open our minds or close them, make us feel powerful and creative or victims in life. People remain poor because, among other reasons of course, they use poor words. Using poor words is like putting low quality gasoline in your car, it affects long term performance and can impact a person’s entire life. Another way of putting it is this: Poor people are not poor, they are using poor words to power their powerful brains.
Many in the middle class use the words “save money,” which is ridiculous when banks and governments are printing money on presses that are running at high speed. Millions of middle class people and amateur investors “invest for the long term.” That too makes no sense when professional investors, using HFT - High-Frequency Trading - are investing for milliseconds. For HFT traders, long term is a half second. Millions of people struggle financially because they use words they don’t understand. Many times, so-called “financial experts'' use financial terms or jargon to sound intelligent and to confuse their client, like “stochastic,” “moving averages,” and “dark pools.” As the saying goes: “If you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your BS.”
The reason a person is called a ‘stock broker’ or a ‘real estate broker’ is because they are often broker than you are. It’s a risk to take investment advice from someone who did not eat unless they sold you something, but we do it all the time. Most people get financial advice from sales people, not rich people. That is why most investors lose money. It is up to the investor to know the difference between good financial advice and a sales pitch. Wall street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls-Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.
THE FED
And then there’s the Federal Reserve. “The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes noted: "Freedom is government divided into small fragments.” Vladimir Lenin, the 1st and founding member of the government of Soviet Russia, once said that the establishment of a central bank was ninety percent of communizing a country. Those who truly understand economics, finance, and debt knew that you cannot take control of a nation without military force unless that nation has a central bank through which you can control its economy.
Reginald McKenna, former President of the Midlands Bank of England, once said that "Those that create and issue the money and credit direct the policies of government and hold in their hands the destiny of the people." Once the government is in debt to the bankers, that government is at their mercy. Those trillions of dollars the United States is in debt with have to come from somewhere, and as the OTHER Golden Rule says, ‘those who own the gold, make the rules.’
Even our Founding Fathers had been conscious of attempts to control America through money manipulation, and they carried on a running battle with the international bankers. Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams: "... I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.”
There is an entire book written about the secret meeting in Jekyll Island, Georgia, that led to the creation of the Federal Reserve, but here are a few things worth noting:
1. The Federal Reserve is not actually “Federal,” i.e. it is an independent body that is not controlled by our own government
The Federal Reserve controls our money supply and interest rates, and thereby manipulates the entire economy-creating inflation or deflation, recession or boom, and sending the stock market up or down at whim. The Federal Reserve is so powerful that Congressman Wright Patman, Chairman of the House Banking Committee, maintained:
“In the United States today we have in effect two governments. ... We have the duly constituted Government. ... Then we have an independent, uncontrolled and uncoordinated government in the Federal Reserve System, operating the money powers which are reserved to Congress by the Constitution.”
Neither Presidents, Congressmen nor Secretaries of the Treasury direct the Federal Reserve. In the matters of money, the Federal Reserve directs them. The uncontrolled power of the "FED" was admitted by Secretary of the Treasury David M. Kennedy in an interview for the May 5, 1969, issue of U.S. News & World Report:
Q. “Do you approve of the latest credit-tightening moves?”
A. “It's not my job to approve or disapprove. It is the action of the Federal Reserve."
2. The FED is a tool used by the wealthy to increase their wealth
As stated above, those who have the gold, make the rules. The FED came into existence in 1913. Woodrow Wilson took his oath of office that same year, and within a few years the national debt rose from $1 billion to $455 billion.
Having built the Federal Reserve as a tool to consolidate and control wealth, the international bankers were now ready to make a major killing. Between 1923 and 1929, the Federal Reserve expanded (inflated) the money supply by sixty-two percent. Much of this new money was used to bid the stock market up to dizzying heights. And then the Great Depression happened. While many suffered tremendously which is what we tend to focus on, more people became millionaires during that time than in any other time in American history. Politicians and "intellectuals" are attracted to the concept that events are propelled by some mysterious tide of history or happen by accident. By this reasoning they hope to escape the blame when things go wrong.
So what does all of this have to do with entrepreneurship? A few reasons:
When you create something for yourself, you’re forced to go on a journey of self-discovery - how the world actually works, how success principles work, and what’s really at stake when there are too many people sitting in the cart (our economy) and fewer and fewer people wanting to do the hard work of pulling the cart (the entrepreneurs and business owners). You start understanding the dangers of welfare and relying on other people (and government programs) to solve your problems for you.
When enough people have something to lose, they remain engaged in their patriotic and civic duties to fight for their freedoms. It’s my / our civic duty to engage in Free Enterprise, the envy of the world around us, or we do our brothers and sisters in arms a great injustice by devaluing the blood they spilt on battlegrounds around the world to give us the right to create something for ourselves.
We are hardwired for greatness, but programmed for failure. Becoming an entrepreneur awakens you to this idea of a “vision.” Not just something I do Monday through Friday to put food on the table, but a cause, a mission, to fight for something bigger than yourself. And you can’t do that when you are operating a vehicle that ransoms your freedom for the price of a salary.
Educating the next generation. It’s not just about whether or not you choose to have a job or build a business for yourself. It’s about the responsibility of growing your mindset and capacity in all areas of life and maximizing your abilities and gifts so you can pass it on the next generation. Legacy is about a lot more than the money you leave behind.
Serving your fellow man. Entrepreneurs can potentially make a lot of cheddar, but the truly great ones reach that status not because they were simply good at making money but because they made a true impact on people and society. The best entrepreneurs are the ones whose mission is to get outside their selfish desires to make their own life more comfortable (you can be plenty comfortable with a paycheck every two weeks) and do something truly significant.
I hope this awakens or reignites your spirit of self-discovery. Ignorance can only remain blissful for so long, and as you get older you pay more and more for remaining willfully ignorant to how the world works around you. For the record, I’m not saying that the solution to your problems is simply to become an entrepreneur. It’s the internal change that becoming an entrepreneur forces you to undergo that is the true treasure. Money and success will fade, but character and servitude is the treasure built up for eternity.