This is what I consider my 3 most important pieces of advice for young people in today’s crazy world.
- DON’T GO TO COLLEGE.
The cost of college has increased sharply in the last few years. The price of textbooks has skyrocketed 812% in the past 30 years. The outstanding student loan debt in America has surpassed $1 trillion. And it’s nearly impossible to get a scholarship. The jobs out there are few, the wages are stagnant, and government-backed loans trail these students for most of their lives. The debt these young graduates are saddled with after college leave them feeling hopeless which is why the suicide rate among these young people is rising.
It all comes down to this: college is not worth the invested time, money and energy in today’s world. 4 years of college just delays you from getting out there and experiencing the world.
Kids are not getting any useful knowledge from these agenda driven professors. They’re being force-fed laughable theories and assumptions from academic wonks who’ve likely failed at life. Sure, they’re instructed to brainstorm, but only inside of a small box of allowable opinion. These colleges are so damn saturated with politically-correct muck, which, is what ultimately drowns out critical thinking and individuality. Most of these young folks coming out of college today lack the basic understanding of the most fundamental aspects of life. They know little history, are completely oblivious to cause and effect and basic finance, can’t write a decent sentence to save their life, and have no entrepreneurial swag to them whatsoever. So much money so little results.
The great companies out there, the revolutionary ones I should say, aren’t hiring based on if you got a degree or not. They’re looking for people with guts. People who get shit done. People who aren’t limited in their imagination.
Dr. Faber, a Swiss fund manager and international investor recently explained why he doesn’t hire people based on their formal education. He simply says:
“And so you have now an army of people that came out of universities and I can tell I met a lot of these people I would not dream of hiring, they’re completely useless. I am not saying that everybody is useless. Some have [a] very good education and very good personality but the ones that I would hire, I would hire them with or without [a] university degree. I will look at them [and think]: can they do something? Are they effective? Can they accomplish something or not? I would not even ask whether they have a university education, I am not interested in that.”
So what’s the alternative?
Self-education, read, read, read. It’s free. Be curious about the world and go find out about things. Look to the future and learn a trade in a field that you know will thrive. Be an entrepreneur, create things, find your art, your love, and let it envelop you. Don’t be concerned about money, do what you love and the money will find its way to you eventually. Be an idea machine, then put these ideas to practical use. Don’t let anyone else shape your future.
- DON’T BUY A HOUSE
The Fed-fueled housing market is rigged. It’s been rigged for a long time.
So we have the Federal Reserve, the central banking branch of the state, artificially suppressing interest rates (punish savers), inflating the money supply (printing money), which, deceptively paints this pretty little picture of a strong recovery. Nothing can be farther from the truth. The housing market (like the stock market) is in another bubble that will burst…again. The writing is on the wall. Politicians and bankers haven’t learned from the last bubble/bust that they created 6 years ago. Their short-term memory benefits them, of course, and screws us.
The great economist, David Stockman, puts it like this:
“Here we are 96 months after the housing peak, yet there are still 20 million households which are either underwater on their mortgages or do not have enough embedded equity to cover the transaction costs and down payment needed to move. Since there are only 50 million households with mortgages, that means that as a practical matter 40% of mortgage borrowers are precluded from trading-up.”
In a earlier article he wrote:
“At the end of the day, we do not have a healthy recovering residential housing market at all, but one that is being hit with a triple whammy of bubble finance. The traditional first time home-buyer is drastically under-represented because young families are buried in more than $1 trillion of student debt.”
With a mortgage payment, most of your hard-earned money goes towards interest. What is interest? It’s what you pay the bank for letting you borrow money. But really, they didn’t let you borrow money. Your mortgage is nothing but digital numbers transferred from another financial institution. So, most of your house payment is not going towards your actual house, rather, it’s going toward the interest you owe. This is why it takes 30 plus years to pay off your house. See the craziness? It’s a scam, an expensive one at that. Plus, throw in maintenance, upkeep and taxes, you’re now officially house broke.
Avoid the trap. Unless you find a great deal and have the funds to put down a large down payment, stay away from buying a house. With the federal government manipulating the hell out this sector of the market, it could be the worst investment of your lifetime.
What’s the alternative?
If you do buy a house, like I said earlier, buy small and affordable with a down payment of at least 20% of the value, more would be better. If you can’t, rent. Renting is so much better in so many ways. First off, you’re not enslaved to the banks. Secondly, you’d be mobile; you’d be able to leave whenever you want. In today’s global economy, this is the preferable choice. Don’t let worldly materials or the American Dream hoopla hold you back from achieving what you love. Mortgages are slavery, plain and simple. Avoid them. Avoid serfdom.
- DON’T JOIN THE MILITARY
Unless you like fighting in senseless wars that stack the pockets of politicians and defense contractors, don’t join the military. Unless you want to die for lies, don’t join the military. Unless you want to invade different countries and shatter the lives of people who are of no threat to you or your country, don’t join the military. Unless you want to be stationed in Afghanistan to guard and protect poppy fields for opium production, don’t join the military. Unless you want to break up your own family or increase your chance of committing suicide, don’t join the military.
I know this sounds unpatriotic and all, but it’s the truth. The military doesn’t fight for freedom. It’s not doing anything in service of our country like it is so proudly peddled. These are just propaganda slogans; tired old mantras left over from the Revolutionary days. Today the military is used by phony politicians and blood lusting pentagon officials to spread the “American Way” of living around the world. Troops are employed to shore up natural resources and expand America’s influence to all 4 corners of the globe. They’re used to overthrow democratically elected leaders overseas and to install brutal dictators funded and controlled by the U.S. The military is used for reasons other than what it’s supposed to be used for, which is defense. (This is why the founding fathers were against having a standing army)
Since WWII, the U.S. has launched 201 out of the 248 armed conflicts in the world. And 90% of all the deaths that resulted were innocent civilians. This is not a noble statistic. If it’s wrong to kill, is it morally okay when a politician tells you to do it? If breaking into a house is considered a criminal act, is it not a criminal act if a president or one in charge commands you to do it? Somehow, when it comes to the state, morality, or the ability to decipher right from wrong becomes blurry.
The war machine is a highly profitable racket. President Eisenhower understood the evils of this racket which he called the military industrial-complex. He tried to warn America about it in his last speech in office. See for yourself. JFK knew about it also and paid the ultimate price for challenging it. The best way to fight this machine is by starving it. Don’t volunteer yourself.
To save your life and others, to keep your spirit and mind healthy, it’d be a wise choice to stay far away from military recruiters. The best way to serve your country is by doing things locally to help people. Build a strong family. Starting a business and giving people jobs is a great service to your country. Be knowledgeable and don’t let people push you in to doing things that you don’t want to do, no matter how much flag-waving they flaunt in your face.
Erik Rittenberry 