Book Summary: Dr. Thomas J. Stanley wrote ‘The Millionaire Next Door’ after doing extensive research in gathering statistics and case studies of today’s millionaires in America. He immediately addresses the culture’s false view of a millionaire. There is a great difference in being rich and being wealthy in today’s society. The research Dr. Stanly has done gives seven common denominators among those who have successfully accumulated large amounts of wealth. The statement that outlines the course of the book is “sacrifice high consumption today for financial independence tomorrow.” Application: After reading this book, I now have a different outlook on how to be successful with my finances.
A whole lot of us are stuck with credit-card debt that goes up each month, mortgages worth more than our homes and student loans that extend into infinity. So it's only natural that we look at the debt crisis from the bottom up: from the perspective of the 99% who are getting screwed. But what if we instead looked at this whole mess from the top down, from the point of view of the 1%: the billionaires and venture capitalists in Mitt Romney's world? Maybe, just maybe, their problem is our problem. In fact, as I have come to see it, short of civilization-ending revolution, solving the debt crisis might actually mean saving the 1%.
Determinate sentences involve sentences that have a fixed or flat time (Jirard, 2009). Determinate sentences play a large part in the increasing number of individuals in prison, which, as you can imagine, puts more strain on prisons financially. In the past two decades, we have become increasingly “tough on crime” which has helped to decrease crime to a certain extent. According to an article in the New York Times (2008), the US has fewer than five percent of the entire world’s population, but almost twenty five percent of the world’s prisoners (Liptak & , 2008). The author of the article goes on to say that people in the US are sentenced to do time for crimes that would not produce such a sentence in other countries.
And the poor know better. How can this situation benefit anyone in our society? If the rich have all of the money and everyone else has nothing then we are no better than a dictatorship. Sure we still have some freedoms but for how long? It seems our government is already been overrun and now controlled by greed.
It’s not just about having more money because there are many millionaires that are living miserable lives. They have so much money in their bank accounts yet they are not happy people. Many of them have to constantly watch their backs fearing that one day a close relative or a close friend might try and take everything they own. Moreover, If you’re live within your means and have more than is necessary to survive, than in my opinion, you are rich. In many ways, money can truly make life more comfortable, and secure.
However, some experts believe the rates have declined because the baby boomer generations are aging, so the percentage of young adults has declined. Some believe that the tougher or harsher sentences for crimes are a cause and there is evidence of this based on the increased prison populations. According to "Where Have All The Burglars Gone?" (2013), "Could more criminals being locked up be the answer? The number of people behind bars has grown substantially in many countries over the past 20 years.” (para.
Prison Industrial Complex Today in the United States we are seeing a change in state of incarceration, according to prisonpolicy.org, since 2010 be have seen the prisoners released exceed prison admissions. This in fact is a major transformation because since 1977 releases have not exceeded admissions. One can view this in a positive aspect by thinking that the United States has finally started shifting their policies away from this asinine system of incarceration but in fact this may only be ploy to systematize a greater portion of our population. Even though release rates have grown, the United States still imprisons the highest percentage of its population. So in actuality, today, we are institutionalizing the greatest number of citizens in our history.
At this time people wanted to spend their money instead of save it for hard times. Society’s hourly pay rate nearly double and tripled during this era. War factories transitioned from making war materials to making civilian supplies, which lead to the boost in our economy at the time. Today, effects of the Baby Boom have many factors that come into play that affect our economy. According to National Academy of Social Insurance “social security faces a financial challenge from the impending retirement of the largest generation in American history, the 76 million persons born in the “baby boom” years, from 1946 through 1964.
However, this is not to be confused with the lives of the affluent. The wealthy relentlessly pursue attaining more wealth. The affluent are wealthy but also have more than material wealth. The affluent people understand that there is more to life than attaining more material wealth. However, the wealthy are simply pursuing more material gains.
3/2/2011 Fixing America’s Immigration Issues The United States due to increasing economic concern needs to address our current immigration policies. An estimated 12 million illegal immigrants are in the United States and this number is increasing every year. In many areas illegal immigrants can receive public assistance including education, welfare and medical care without paying in taxes. Immigration reforms could help in reducing the national debt while allowing us to retain many of the current benefits given to American citizens. The American public in general realizes reform must take place, but the direction the policy reform should to take is still very much up in the air.