The rich get richer while the poor get poorer. We have all heard it. Some say it’s a conspiracy against the poor. The rich are at the top in secret societies with the blessing of the government (and maybe even controlling the government) as they scheme to get richer at the expense of the poor. Recent history confirms that the rich actually have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer. The economy has grown back to pre-recession levels (as of this writing) but the wealth of the nation is sitting in fewer hands. These things are true whether you believe in any of the various conspiracy theories or not.

History shows that the economy always goes through cycles of recession and recovery while growing over time. Each time recessions hit, jobs are lost and cost of living rises. Each time a recovery comes, more jobs are created and things are “good again”. So if a person’s only resource is a paycheck, their livelihood is at the mercy of the economic cycle. Suffering horribly when there is recession and focusing on “getting back on their feet” when there is a recovery. During a recession, the rich are affected too but their solution is simpler: spend on less luxury and bide their time until the recovery happens.

During the economic cycle, the main reason for the growth of the rich and the collapse of the poor is related to the possession of assets. The value of most assets are tied to the overall economy. As the economy grows, the rich automatically get richer as their assets grow along with it. The poor tend to not have any. As the economy grows, the poor have to dig themselves out of debt (due to previous unemployment, displacement, etc), and get back on their feet before they can even start to grow. This is because the poor depend on paychecks and most live paycheck to paycheck.

If a typical rich person with assets and a typical poor person with none both sit around doing nothing during an economic recovery, the rich person gets richer thanks to the assets growing in value on their own. The poor have nothing that grows and so the divide between rich and poor is wider than before the recovery!

The answer to this problem is to make smart investments and have assets of our own. The key word is “smart” investments. They should be prudent, realistic and done right. For example, the “American dream” is home ownership which cements a person’s status as middle class, but this has to be done right or a recession can still put you right back where you started. Smart investments can shield us from the economic cycle and can grow during periods of recovery.

I am a Money Rebel. I hate money because it controls our lives. It dictates our quality of life, our options, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, where we live, who we interact with and everything in between. The only way to take over control of our lives is to make money work for us – to control that which otherwise controls us.

I’m not there yet, but I will be.

I have created this blog to tell the story of my journey to financial independence and share my progress along the way. I will share my advice, opinions, lessons learned, actions taken, successes and failures.

As time passes I will prove myself successful and establish a track record. My vision is to then launch Money Rebels as an investment company to help others rebels successfully gain control of their lives as well.

But here is where I start – with this blog. Stay tuned.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. ~ Lao Tzu