Tag Archives: stock market

December 20, 2022 · 5:23 am

My Challenge To Every Anti-Woke, Anti-SJW Grifter/Whiner

Whenever someone makes an argument, a claim, or a prediction of some kind, it’s important to question just how sincere they are in making it. By that, I don’t mean always doubting them. People can say plenty of dumb things that that they’re convinced are true, even after most reasonable people point out how objectively dumb it is. The internet and social media has made this distressingly easy for any number of issues, be they political, cultural, or mundane.

But I don’t want to bemoan the method or the medium this time. There’s certainly a conversation to be had about the nature of social media and it has affected our collective approach to discourse.

Instead, I want to narrow my focus on one particular vocal group of people who keep making one particular argument again and again about a particular issue. The issue in this case has to do with pop culture and genre entertainment, which are subjects that have always inspired plenty of debate, productive and unproductive alike. Specifically, it has to do with the concept of “Get Woke, Go Broke,” a constant refrain that certain pop culture critics, YouTubers, and social media personalities love to state whenever an entertainment company dares to be diverse.

Now, let me make something clear. I think that refrain is a complete crock of shit.

Let me also make another thing clear. There was a time when I got somewhat sucked into this whole rabbit hole of anti-woke, anti-social justice warrior subculture that emerged in the mid-2010s. I even wrote about it on this site. And I genuinely regret that. I’m even embarrassed that I ever bought into that crap, thinking that there was some nefarious agenda by left-wing activists to ruin pop culture and beloved franchises.

These are multi-billion-dollar corporations, last I checked. Their only agenda has been profits and market share. That’s what it was before the word “woke” ever got coined. That’s what it’ll be whenever the next internet hate mob decides to whine about something.

As for the membership of that hate mob, I genuinely hesitate to identify them by name. I seriously don’t want to give these people any more undeserved attention than they already get. I’ll just say they’re the YouTubers, social media personalities, and online personas that whined constantly about “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” complained endlessly about comments Brie Larson made about a lack of diversity in film criticism, and never hesitate to bemoan any piece of media that dares to be more diverse than a 1980s action movie.

These are not legitimate critics who have something meaningful to say about the state of popular culture. Their professional whiners and grifters, plain and simple.

Now, I understand that’s a strong statement from someone who regularly reviews and criticizes pop culture. I’m an aspiring YouTuber, as well. And for the most part, my audience and subscriber base is a fraction of what some of these other personalities have. It’s very likely I’ll never achieve their numbers.

However, having followed some of these critics/grifters/whiners over the years, I’ve watched them become more and more dishonest with their criticism. It’s at a point now where I can easily predict their reaction to any new movie trailer, video game announcement, or entertainment news without ever even clicking on their videos or social media feeds. It goes like this.

If the news celebrates or announces something about diversity, inclusion, or anything that’s ideologically left of Archie Bunker, they complain that this is left wing, SJW attack on pop culture.

If the news celebrates or announces something that aligns with or reaffirms their personal politics, which tend to be right-leaning and often glorifies people or characters who are white males, they celebrate it as a triumph.

It’s why they’ll make a big deal about “Top Gun: Maverick” being a huge box office success, but constantly forget that Brie Larson’s “Captain Marvel” made over $1 billion at the box office. They may make endless excuses for why that is, but they’ll never concede that their arguments, rhetoric, and entire perspective are full of shit.

I have no respect for these grifters, in case that isn’t abundantly clear. And with each passing year, their whining and excuses get more pathetic.

But recently, a unique opportunity has emerged for these whiners/grifters to prove that they aren’t just saying what they think will get them subs, clicks, or attention. In fact, it’s an opportunity that could potentially make them and their families very rich.

It has to do with Disney and how it was recently announced that Bob Iger was returning as CEO. Now, there are a lot of uncertain details about this story and why it’s happening. Many have their theories, but it’s very unlikely that any of these wannabe critics know even a fraction of the story. Since Disney owns both Marvel and Star Wars, it certainly has the anti-woke, anti-SJW crowd talking.

To be fair, not all of them are whining about the same thing. But they’re all still whining about something. That’s just how grifters work.

That being said, I do feel this might be the best possible moment for those who genuinely believe what they say to set themself apart from those dishonest grifters. Because in the same news that announced Bob Iger returning to Disney, it made clear that he was going to be in charge for two years. That’s an important detail for what I’m about to propose.

So, with that in mind, I have a challenge for those who believe Disney has become too woke and will ultimately fail in accord with the whole “Get Woke, Go Broke” mantra. And it’s a simple challenge that any one of these individuals can do.

Short Disney’s stock.

That’s right. Put your money where your rhetoric is. Prove to everyone, supporters and critics alike, that you genuinely believe what you believe about entertainment that’s too “woke.” Because if that holds true and it eventually does hurt Disney’s business, then you have a perfect opportunity to profit from it.

In case you don’t know what shorting a stock is, I’ll gladly help. In general, it’s a way for anyone to profit from a company’s stock price going down. Instead of buying low and selling high, you essentially borrow shares of a company at a certain price and sell it off at that price for a profit as the stock declines in value. Almost any bank or brokerage offers these services. Here’s a quick video from the YouTube channel, ClayTrader.

I’ll even offer another tip that will help multiply those returns even more. Since Iger is going to be at Disney for two years, you can use that information to essentially leverage your investment through the use of options trading. That way, your returns are greatly increased. Yes, the risk is considerably greater and there is a chance you could lose much more than your initial investment. But that shouldn’t concern you.

Remember, you’re the ones who keep saying, “Get Woke, Go Broke,” remember? That means if you’re right, there’s no chance of that happening. If Disney’s commitment to diversity and inclusion continues to fail, its stock price will fall. And you’ll be there to profit from it. You just have to utilize a put option with a two-year timeframe.

If you need information on that process, here’s another helpful video by the YouTube channel, TastyTrade.

This isn’t just a chance to vindicate everything you’ve been saying about diversity and inclusion in media. This is a chance to turn a massive profit from a multi-billion-dollar company’s failure. You won’t just be proven right in the eyes of every critic who has ever posted a nasty comment about you. You’ll end up richer, as a result. What could be more satisfying than that?

So, with all this knowledge and insight, what’s stopping you?

What’s preventing you from actually taking advantage of Disney’s actions on this front?

If you truly believe that Star Wars, Marvel, and the whole of Disney’s business is doomed to fail because of their agenda, this is your chance to take advantage of it and do something great for your financial future. You, your family, and your credibility in the sphere of pop culture and entertainment will be better.

Your only possible excuse for not doing this is if you actually don’t believe in the crap you say about getting woke and going broke. And the only reason you repeat that is because it earns you easy clicks and a reliable audience. If that’s the case, then you have no real credibility. You’re just a whiny grifter dancing like a drunk monkey in a digital space for tips. If that’s what you are, then that’s fine. People need to make a living. I get that. Just be honest about what a dishonest piece of shit you are.

I’ll ask again. What’s stopping you from doing this?

Go on. Short Disney’s stock. Throw your entire life savings into it. If Disney truly goes broke by going so woke, then you’ll come out ahead. Don’t you want that?

I dare you.

I double dare you.

I triple dog dare you.

Prove to the world that this anti-woke shit is more than just whiny grifters telling people what they want to hear.

I’ll wait.

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April 17, 2021 · 9:06 am

Bernie Madoff Is Dead: Reminders And Perspectives

In general, it’s wise and considerate to not celebrate another human being’s death. Even if you despise that person on so many levels, we should make an effort to not take too much satisfaction in someone else’s passing. It’s just basic human decency.

However, there are some exceptions and I think most would agree the death Bernie Madoff qualifies.

There aren’t a whole lot of people in this world who have managed to make themselves so universally hated. Somehow, Madoff found a way. Hatred of him and his crimes has transcended politics, ideology, race, religion, and geography. That’s a rare kind of hatred, but one Madoff rightly earned.

After his huge, decades-long Ponzi scheme was exposed, he became the face of evil and greed. The man stole from everyone. From Hollywood elites to holocaust survivors, he’d steal from anyone just to keep his scheme going.

For that reason, it’s entirely understandable that some are celebrating the recent news of his death. After decades of bilking people out of their money and living the life of immense wealth, Madoff died alone in prison with no friends, family, or loved ones to mourn him. It may very well be the most justice we can expect for a crime of this magnitude.

AP News: Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff dies in prison at 82

Bernard Madoff, the infamous architect of an epic securities swindle that burned thousands of investors, outfoxed regulators and earned him a 150-year prison term, died behind bars early Wednesday. He was 82.

Madoff’s death at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, was confirmed by his lawyer and the Bureau of Prisons.

For his many victims, I’m sure Madoff’s death is cold comfort, at best. I certainly have my opinions of the man. I’d rather not share them, if only to avoid the ire of the FCC. Instead, I want to offer some perspective on the death of this fraudster and the lessons from it that we should heed.

Most people already know the basics of Madoff’s scheme. It was, by and large, a massive Ponzi scheme. It’s certainly not a new scam. It’s been around for decades. Madoff’s was just the biggest. How he went about sustaining it for so many years has been covered by many people far smarter than me.

However, the size and specifics of the scheme matter. It was always going to fall apart, as all Ponzi schemes do. It’s like gravity. There’s only so much money you can steal to give to previous investors. Eventually, you just run out of people and money. The math always works against you.

The fact that so many Ponzi schemes still occur, despite all these forces working against them, is something worth noting. The death of Bernie Madoff doesn’t mean these types of schemes will go away. There will always be some ruthless, amoral con-man out there who manages to scam people out of money through trickery, deceit, and fraud. The death of one famous fraudster isn’t going to discourage the fraud.

Another perspective that we shouldn’t forget is how Madoff’s scheme could’ve, and probably should’ve, been exposed years ago before it got this big. It’s well-documented that Harry Markopolos, a financial analyst from Boston, figured out the scheme as early as 2000 and tried multiple times to expose it. Unfortunately, the right people didn’t listen and the system didn’t work as it should’ve.

That’s another thing that tends to happen a lot with these schemes. There are often people who figure it out long before it makes the news or alerts the authorities. Sometimes, it hastens the collapse of the scheme, but skilled con-men find a way to get around it. That only ensures more people get hurt in the long run.

With Madoff’s death, it leads me to wonder just how many other schemes like his are out there, unexposed and operating under the guise of legitimacy. We may not think they’re scams. They may go out of their way to assure us that they’re nothing like Madoff. We should still be vigilant.

There are some proactive steps you can take. There are signs you can look for and government agencies you can call. Madoff was a skilled con-man, but even he couldn’t hide every aspect of his lies. Even the most determined fraudsters can only do so much to subvert the basic math of finance.

There’s also one other perspective I think is worth highlighting and it might be the most revealing of it all. Of all the distressing details surrounding the Madoff saga, the one that stands out most to me is how Madoff inevitably gave up on it.

When he was exposed, it wasn’t because someone at the FBI or SEC caught him lying. It wasn’t because he messed up and a regulator caught him in the act. Madoff went down because he willingly gave up. He turned himself over when he realized he just couldn’t keep the scheme going anymore.

It wasn’t a matter of law enforcement catching the criminal. It was a matter of the criminal just giving up because fighting it just wasn’t worth the effort anymore. Take a moment to think about that and the implications.

We, as a law-biding society, didn’t catch Bernie Madoff. He just gave up. That says a lot more about the system in place than it does about our collective hatred of con-men like him. It also raises the question of what would happen if someone even more ruthless and amoral found themselves in a similar position.

How much further could they take the scheme?

How many more victims could they exploit?

These are distressing questions and the answers should give us pause. A man as infamous and cunning as Bernie Madoff could only succeed in a system with enough flaws for him to exploit. Who’s to say there isn’t someone worse operating a similar fraud right now?

This infamous criminal is now dead and he will be rightly vilified for his crimes for years to come. However, let’s not let his death or our shared hatred of him give the false impression that crimes like his won’t happen. They certainly will. It’s just a matter of catching them before they hurt too many people.

There are many people like Bernie Madoff who are still alive and still operating their various frauds. We can’t stop all of them. At the very least, we can make sure they never succeed as long or as much as he did.

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February 13, 2021 · 8:58 am

A Note To Investors/Enthusiasts Of Dogecoin

We live in a strange time. I know you could say that about almost any point in history, but let’s face it. The past year has been more eventful than most. The past few months have been even more eventful if you’re an investor or follow economic news. We recently learned that a multi-billion dollar hedge fund is no match for a bunch of shit-posters on Reddit.

I’m not gonna lie. That story still puts a smile on my face. Last year sucked, but when a bunch of shit-posters on Reddit tank a predatory hedge fund, the world is an objectively better place.

As much fun as that is, there are some other stories related to investing that are worth noting. On top of the craziness caused by r/WallStreetBets, it has been just as chaotic for investors of cryptocurrencies. When the financial world is in chaos, cryptocurrencies that thumb their nose at old economic institutions tend to thrive.

Now, full disclosure, I do own Bitcoins. That’s the only cryptocurrency I own and I don’t own much. I’m not a bold investor. I buy index funds and ETFs. I would not fit in on r/WallStreetBets, nor would I be a good evangelist for Bitcoin.

For that same reason, I’d like to send a special note to those currently caught up in the Dogecoin craze. If you don’t know what Dogecoin is, then that’s understandable. It is a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, but it’s unique in a few very particular ways.

Most notably, Dogecoin is often treated as a joke. That’s because it started off as one.

That’s not my opinion. That’s literally part of its origin. Its creators, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, were legitimately surprised when people started using it. I guess they didn’t get the joke.

That doesn’t mean Dogecoin has absolutely nothing going for it. It is a functioning cryptocurrency that uses some of the same technology as Bitcoin. Its most notable difference is that, unlike Bitcoin, there’s no limit to how many Dogecoins can be mined. Whereas Bitcoin can only ever have 21 million, Dogecoins can be mined indefinitely.

It may seem like a small difference, but that difference matters if you understand the basics of scarcity in economics. Most people understand it on some levels. If you can make an infinite amount of something, then it’s not going to have much value. If something is incredibly finite and difficult to obtain, like gold or Bitcoins, it’s going to have more value.

It’s that concept that I’d like to convey to those cheering on Dogecoin. Thanks to the recent upheavals from r/WallStreetBets, Dogecoin has been surging more than most currencies and even people like Elon Musk are cheering it on.

That’s not unusual. Sometimes, certain assets get propped up for a brief period. That has happened a lot with cryptocurrencies over the past decade. However, with Dogecoin, it’s a lot more style than substance.

Whereas Bitcoin gains value as it becomes more accepted in various sectors of the economy, Dogecoin gains value because people are just cheering it on. One has long-term sustainability. The other ends as soon as people get bored or find something else to cheer on.

Today, it’s Dogecoin.

Tomorrow, it could be JackCoin, a cryptocurrency made exclusively for people named Jack.

Is that the dumbest idea in the history of finance? I don’t know, but entire economies have gone bust for dumb things before.

Again, I’m not an investment expert. I’m not giving investment advice to anyone. However, to those thinking about getting in on the Dogecoin craze, I offer one important message.

You can win with style over substance in a lot of things, but not when it comes to money. At some point, a product has to demonstrate its value. You can only prop it up for so long before basic economic forces take over. It’s not fair and it’s not rational, but that’s how economics work.

Dogecoin will find that out at some point. Investors may have to find out the hard way.

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January 30, 2021 · 9:48 am

Jack’s World Thoughts Experiment: How Much Money Do You Need?

The following is a video for my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. It explores another thought experiment, something I’ve done plenty of times before. This one just happens to involve money. Given the recent events with the stock market, I think the time is right to contemplate money and how it guides our lives. Enjoy!

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January 29, 2021 · 5:52 am

A Subreddit Exploited Wall Street Hedge Funds (And I Applaud Them)

Every now and then, a news story comes along that just puts a smile on my face for all the right reasons. Granted, a lot of those news stories involve comic books and sex robots, but certain news transcends my preferences. They’re just too inherently awesome and cathartic to ignore.

This recent story surrounding a sub-reddit beating a multi-billion dollar hedge fund on Wall Street is definitely one of them. In the process, it suddenly turned Gamestop, a store I haven’t been in for three years, into the hottest stock on the market.

It’s the kind of story that would make a ridiculous movie. It’s not “The Big Short.” Hell, reads like a “Robot Chicken” sketch, plus or minus a few poop jokes. Except, this actually happened in the real world.

For those who haven’t been following this story, here’s a colorful breakdown by Esquire.

Esquire: How WallStreetBets Redditors Used Their Collective Power to Manipulate the Stock Market

News about the stock market rarely crosses over into the cultural mainstream, and historically when that’s happened, it’s meant some catastrophic financial event has taken place. (See: The housing and stock market crashes of 2008.)

But the stock market was the single biggest news story Wednesday, financial or otherwise, due to a group of Reddit shitlords pumping up a collection of stocks and pushing some billion-dollar financial institutions to the brink of bankruptcy.

Hedge fund Melvin Capital needed a $2.75 billion bailout on Monday after the stock price for GameStop, the video game retailer, spiked to more than $70 a share over the weekend. Just a month earlier, the stock was hovering near $15. Melvin was shorting the stock, hence the need for a bailout. Reports of Melvin Capital’s financial struggles sent GameStop’s share price soaring even higher, though, to more than $100 a share on Monday, putting the hedge fund in an even more precarious financial decision. As of this writing, the stock was trading for $330 per share—77 times higher than its share price of $4.28 a year ago.

The GameStop stock rally is the handiwork of r/WallStreetBets, a Reddit community where people share news, memes and personal anecdotes about playing the stock market.

Let’s all take a moment to shed a fake tear for a hedge fund that sought to make money by hoping a company would die. Let’s also take a moment to contain our rage that those assholes still got a multi-billion dollar bailout with little to no debate, but I digress.

That article gave us the basics. In short, a bunch of people on Reddit decided to exploit the short positions that a bunch of hedge funds had on Gamestop and make a ton of money on the side. It’s the kind of gimmicky stock trading tactics that you’d see in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” minus the strippers and ludes. The only difference is this didn’t break any laws and only fucked over hedge funds.

If you need a more thorough breakdown of just how those hedge funds were fucked over, here’s a video by the YouTube channel TLDR News. They break it down beautifully. I must warn you, though. If you get excited by seeing hedge funds get screwed over by a bunch of Reddit trolls, you might not be able to contain yourself.

Now, why do I love this story so much?

Why am I making such a big deal of it?

Why is this even news on such a large scale?

The answer is fairly simple. It’s not just that I love Reddit and have been an active user for years. This kind of thing just doesn’t happen that often. A bunch of normal, everyday people on Reddit getting the best of a Wall Street hedge fund? It just doesn’t seem possible.

Even if you’re a die hard capitalist or an dogmatic liberation, you can’t be too fond of hedge funds. In addition to being fertile grounds for fraudsters, con-men, and Gordan Gecko wannabes, they have just one goal. They seek to make rich people even richer. How they go about that varies, but they’re not above lying, cheating, and effectively gaming every capitalist system to their advantage.

They’re basically villains for both capitalists, socialists, and communists alike. They’ll screw over anyone, be they individuals or companies, so long as they can turn a profit. They don’t make anything. They don’t create or develop products that they sell to willing consumers. They mostly dick around with math, balance sheets, and stock prices to make money. That’s it.

I’m not a fan, to say the least. Watching them lose is like watching Lex Luthor get beat up by a five-year-old girl. You don’t think it’s possible, but it’s a glorious sight when you see it.

Honestly, this is the kind of story we need right now. A bunch of nobodies on the internet find a way to screw over a hedge fund whose business model involves screwing over struggling companies. What’s not to love? That’s a superhero narrative wrapped in true capitalism wrapped in American ingenuity. Ron Swanson himself would be proud.

There’s a lot more I could say about this. Since the story is still unfolding on many fronts, I’ll hold off. I’ll just say that if r/WallStreetBets does nothing more than screw over a hedge fund trying to profit from Gamestop’s demise, they’ll still have done a great good for this world.

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December 13, 2016 · 5:58 am

How I Would Spend A Million Dollars (And NOT Go Broke)

We’ve all dreamed about it. We’ve all fantasized about it. In fact, other than having an army of naked bikini models or an army of Ryan Gosling clones, it’s probably one of our most frequent fantasies. What would we do if we suddenly became rich?

I know I’ve fantasized about it. Then again, I fantasize about a lot of things. It’s kind of necessary when you’re trying to be an erotica/romance writer. You need to be able to conjure the kinds of potent fantasies that make women need to change their panties and men wish they hadn’t worn such tight jeans. It’s a skill I’m developing and one from which I hope to gain greater success in the future.

Now I know the odds aren’t exactly in my favor right now. The odds of any writer of any genre, regardless of sex appeal, becoming as wealthy as Stephen King or Stephanie Meyer is right up there with scoring a date with Taylor Swift. However, with the recent interest I’ve attracted from publishers, those odds are improving. It’s not much, but any improvement is better than no improvement at this stage of my publishing career.

Even with the odds still not in my favor, I often find myself entertaining various scenarios on what I would do if one of my books became a best seller. Specifically, I often wonder what I would do with the money I make.

First off, I would not immediately get on the first flight to Las Vegas and spend three nights in a hot tub with five strippers, a keg of beer, a buffet of deep-fried Twinkies. Unless you’re a billionaire, that sort of thing is best left to pornos and low-budget skin flicks on Cinemax.

Second, it’s worth pointing out that a whopping 70 percent of lottery winners end up going bankrupt. On top of that, according to Sports Illustrated, over 60 percent of professional athletes go bankrupt after their careers are over. Even if you suck at math, you should know that those are not trivial figures.

Here’s a good way to illustrate that point: imagine you ordered your favorite pizza, but over two-thirds of it was eaten before it got delivered. That’s a lot of pizza you’re missing out on. Now imagine you were supposed to live off of that pizza. Losing over half of it now feels a lot more serious, doesn’t it?

So why does this happen? Who do people who strike it rich go broke? Well, it isn’t just a matter of owning pet Tigers, owing child support to multiple women for multiple children, investing in failed business ventures, or buying one too many cars, although that’s part of it. There’s a psychological component to it.

Unless you’re born rich or become rich through skilled business savvy, which only applies to a fraction of the population, you don’t know how to be rich. Yes, there is a certain amount of skill to being rich. Like any great talent, not everyone has it. As such, not everyone knows how to deal with it.

There’s even a psychological term for it. It’s called Sudden Wealth Syndrome and it’s pretty prevalent among lotto winners and professional athletes. When someone gets a sudden influx of wealth, it causes a great deal of stress because their brains aren’t wired to handle it. They’re so used to being not rich that it just feels off.

This is why it’s so easy for lotto winners and professional athletes to go broke. Their brains aren’t wired to see all this money the same way Bill Gates of Warren Buffet sees it. In some respects, they look at money the same way they look at milk. They need to spend it or it’ll expire.

That’s what leads them to just throw it away, giving it to friends or investing it in businesses that have the organization of a 6th grade science fair project. They don’t realize until it’s too late that money doesn’t go bad. It’s okay to actually save it and it’s possible to invest it in a way that’ll ensure you don’t need to dine on Ramen noodles and hot pockets.

Now to be fair, most people don’t know squat about finance or investing. It’s not a class public school teaches to kids at a young age. I get the sense that administrators understand that most kids in public schools aren’t going to strike it rich so it’s not worth the effort. It’s cynical, but understandable.

Given these odds and the tendency for non-rich people to piss their money away like an incontinent monkey, I’ve already crafted a plan on how I would invest a million dollars if I ever achieved that kind of success. This isn’t a fantasy. This is a plan. I may never get a chance to implement this plan, but like a condom, it’s better to have one and not need one rather than need one and not have one.

For this plan, I start with about a million ($1,000,000) dollars. I know Bill Gates can probably find that much money in his couch cushion, but it’s a nice even amount to work with. Since the human brain is terrible at dealing with large numbers, it helps to keep things even.

With this million, here are the simple steps of my plan. Any future lotto winners or professional athletes who want to follow this plan are welcome to do so. It’s free, it’s easy, and anyone who knows how to work a cell phone can do it.

Step 1: Pay off ALL the taxes first, if possible

This is, by far, the most important step anyone with money can take. The IRS is, in many respects, the ultimate dominatrix in that she’ll hurt you in ways you didn’t know were possible. You do not want to defy her.

Step 2: Set up an investing account with a reputable bank and pick one with the lowest fees

This is fairly easy for someone with money. If you have a million dollars, most banks will roll out the red carpet for you. Some will even waive certain fees if you have a lot of money in the account. Depositing a million dollars will usually get you a lot of leeway in that respect.

Step 3: Buy either an index fund (VFINX) or buy a blue-chip stock with a healthy dividend like Verizon, Exxon, or GE

The key here is not to buy a stock you’re going to sell for a quick turn around. The key here is to buy the stock and just basically forget about it. From here, you focus entirely on the dividends. They’re basically Wall Street’s version of masturbation. They’re the gift that keeps on giving.

Step 4: Build a budget around the dividends

From here on out, I focus on the monthly or quarterly dividends that the stock or index fund pays. With a million dollars, it’s usually not enough to just live in a mansion and never have to work again. You usually need several million for that. However, it’s still pretty considerable.

For example, let’s look at how $1,000,000 pays with buying Verizon. As of this posting, the dividend yield is %4.49. Do a little basic math and that comes out to $44,900 a year, which is paid out quarterly with four payments of $11,225 over the course of a year.

Take a breath now. That’s the most math you’ll need to do with this strategy. With this means is that you’ll have a yearly income of over $40,000 for doing absolutely nothing. It’s basically a slacker’s wet dream.

Now unless you want to dine on caviar and snort cocaine off a supermodel’s ass every week, you can budget $44,900 a year to live fairly comfortably. For me, this means taking that $11,225 quarterly dividend and budgeting it for three months at a time.

In most areas that aren’t New York City or San Francisco, you can find a decent home with decent amenities for that sum, plus utilities. That’s the ultimate endgame for this plan of mine. I invest the money in a way that gives me a passive income I can use to pay for the essentials, ensuring that any money I make beyond that is just icing on the cake.

There is one more step though and it’s also quite essential. If you followed the first step, then it should be easy to figure out.

Step 5: Pay all the necessary taxes associated with your investment and dividends

Again, it’s worth re-emphasizing how much you do not want to mess with the IRS. They don’t care if you take your money and throw it at a flock of pigeons. If you don’t give them their cut, they’re going to come after you and you will be in a world of legal trouble that no amount of money can make easier.

There you have it. That’s my plan if and when I ever become rich from either my publishing efforts, by winning the lottery, or by marrying Jennifer Lawrence, whichever comes first. I hope I get a chance to implement it one day. Until then, I hope others take the wise advice of Warren Buffet.

When it comes to money and investing, nobody can beat the market. The best you can do is not lose to it, but unlike gambling or sports, not losing can still be pretty damn profitable.

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