The Tax We Impose on Ourselves by Our Failure to Manage Our Time…

Father Abraham continues...

“If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be, as Poor Richard says, the
greatest prodigality;”

Like most seekers of wealth and wisdom, Albert devoured books, articles, and training programs that could help him grow and prosper. In 1975 or thereabouts, he discovered a timeless treasure in Alan Lakein’s book ‘How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life.’ He adopted the principles and practices the book advised, and adapted them to his life and lifestyle. He created a training program for employees and clients based on the ideas in the book. He was convinced

that Alan Lakein had discovered eternal truths.

A few years later Albert discovered ‘The Way to Wealth.’ Surprise! 225 years earlier Benjamin Franklin had not only known of these ideas but had also written about them. When Father

Abraham begins the discussion of time management it is with the premise that the ineffective use of time is a failing so great that it is the greatest failing a person can have.

Think about it…

It’s your time and your life.

The 21st Century Way to Wealth - Part 1 - Industriousness - A Ten Percent Tax…

Father Abraham continues...

“It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their time, to be employed in its service;"

Benjamin Franklin and the other Founding Fathers didn’t have to deal with the IRS, state, county, township, city and tax-district income taxes, property taxes, school taxes, taxes on gas, electricity, telephone service, internet access, cable and satellite service, water, sewer, gasoline, heating fuel, beer, wine, whiskey, tobacco, and sales tax on almost everything else thrown in just for good measure.

Add to that the taxes on corporations that are buried in the price of their goods so you end up paying tax on that hidden tax when you buy those goods.

Today’s governments in America take a lot more than ten percent of your time. They don’t require actual time. They take so much of the typical American’s work product — money for short — in the form of taxes that many Americans really work for the government up to 50% of the time.

It can get even worse if you are financially successful; add in estate and inheritance

taxes, probate fees and final expense costs. Even when you have well informed and qualified advisors, the government can confiscate a big chunk of your estate when you die.

Is ours, therefore, a “hard government?”

Hard indeed and getting out of hand, but recall the taxes we impose on ourselves by idleness, pride and folly. We control these taxes entirely.

We can control the taxes of government only by electing people who see government as the servant of ‘We the People…’

How does the current crew in DC measure up?

Did Father Abraham Foresee the Future?

Father Abraham continues...


"…and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by allowing an abatement."

Today a few Americans clamor for the government to take over everything from health care to energy, the banking system to the auto industry.

Father Abraham reminds us that government can’t bail us out of our individual and collective idleness, pride and follies, although the Congress seems to think the government can do just

that.

“However, let us hearken to good advice, and something maybe done for us; ‘God helps them that help themselves,’ as Poor Richard says.”

Poor Richard, the Founding Fathers and Mothers, presidents, statesmen and women, and their families recognized that God created a universe where we are personally responsible for our actions and inactions, our decisions about our lives and our lifestyles, and how we care for the abundance that we have been given to steward.

Even those who do not believe in God rank personal responsibility highest on the stewardship scale. We all recognize that we create government to be the servant of “We the People” and that we the people are the servants of a higher power.

Think about it...

God is the true rule-maker.

The Tax We Impose on Ourselves by Our Folly...

Father Abraham continues...

"…and four times as much by our folly;"

‘Folly: a lack of good sense or normal prudence and foresight; an excessively costly or unprofitable undertaking’ - Merriam-Webster Online.

Have you ever followed a whim and found it to be a folly? Or just entered into a folly, eyes wide open?

Father Abraham identifies the greatest tax that we impose on ourselves as “folly.” The Behemoths have convinced us that folly is wisdom. They want us to believe it’s OK to lose real money today in order to have maybe-money at some undetermined future date. That’s folly: a lack of good sense, normal prudence and foresight; an excessively costly and unprofitable undertaking for you, but not for the Behemoths. That’s how they have become wealthy as we find less and less in our accounts.

Think about it...

We can do better.

The Tax We Impose on Ourselves by Our Pride...

Father Abraham continues...

"…three times as much by our pride,"

When Father Abraham talks about “pride” as a treble-tax he’s reminding America of one of its longest standing foibles: keeping up with the Jones’s.

Perhaps it’s just human. It’s been a recognized human frailty since Cain whacked Able.

Regardless, spending our money in an attempt to appear affluent, sophisticated, educated, informed, well-connected, etc. is real money that you trade for imagined gains that are no more substantial than smoke.

Many Americans believe wrongly that investments over which they have no control measures wealth, and possessions that they do not own, which they purchased with a loan, measures well-

being.

Darn Jones’s…

Literally more trouble than they’re worth.

Think about it...

The Tax We Impose on Ourselves by Our Idleness...

Father Abraham continues...

"...We are taxed twice as much by our idleness,"

Father Abraham’s math might be a bit obscure but one thing is certain; individually and collectively, we lose both income and assets by failing to act when action is appropriate or required.

Money comes from work. Success comes from handling that money well. That’s more work. Americans are the masters when it comes to making money from their work, but we have given in to idleness when it comes to managing our personal finances.

We have allowed the Behemoths to convince us that they know better than we do what is best for us. We have relinquished our power over our own money, and that is a greater burden than taxes ever could be.

A painful realization?

Father Abraham Begins…

Father Abraham stood up and replied, “If you would have my advice, I will give it you in short; for A word to the wise is enough, as Poor Richard says.”
Ah! The first words of Poor Richard and how profound are they. There’s more to come and, if Dr Agon Fly were as wise as Father Abraham, he might use fewer words with deeper meaning.

“[The crowd at the auction] joined in desiring him to speak his mind, and gathering round him he proceeded as follows.
“Friends,” said he, “the taxes are indeed very heavy, and, if those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us.”

Father Abraham’s comment reflects one the most fundamental characteristics of Americans: the indomitable spirit that sees the insanity of governments and their attempts to manipulate the people and the economy with taxes, as a mere pot hole on the road of life.

His closing comment points to the next several topics, which illustrate how we create our own money problems.

Prepare to be surprised — and perhaps a bit embarrassed...

Introducing Father Abraham…

"…and one of the company called to a plain, clean old man, with white locks," B. Franklin

Plain, clean, old… a picture of wisdom in 1758, but how about now?

Today we tend to discount the same qualities that in times past we honored and revered. We praise complexity as progress, denigrate clean simplicity as unsophisticated, and deride inevitable

advanced age as if it were a disease to avoid.

Today, as in 1758, people look to those with experience and wisdom for advice and counsel. The difference between 1758 and today is that current America has mistakenly clothed the Behemoths

with the mantel of both knowledge and wisdom--big government, including its most incompetent branch, the US Congress, large corporations, oversized labor unions, idealogical lobbyists like AARP disguised as advocatres, and bloated bureaucracies have unjustifyably become the voices heard loudest.

Worse, we allow their wet-behind-the-ears minions with little or no life experience to delude us with the recital of shibboleths that are meaningless but persuasive.

“Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the times? Will not these heavy taxes quite ruin the country? How shall we ever be able to pay them? What would you advise us to do?” 

B. FRanklin

Are you amazed that the questions of 1758 are so similar to the questions Americans ask today? When ‘We the People’ answer these questions, you hear us disagreeing with the meaningless but

persuasive conventional wisdom spewed by the Behemoths.

What a concept — ‘We the People...’

Setting the Stage...

The Way to Wealth by Benjamin Franklin

Commentary by Dr Agon Fly

COURTEOUS Reader,

I have heard that nothing gives an author so great pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by others.  Judge, then, how much I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to relate to you. - B. Franklin

Dr Agon Fly agrees. Kind words about one’s writing are greatly appreciated. It is with the hope that the commentary he provides is in some small proportion as helpful to today’s 21st Century reader as Benjamin Franklin’s words were to early Americans. It is with equal hope that this commentary will receive some measure of attention and endure beyond a few moments in time.

Thank you…

I stopped my horse lately, where a great number of people were collected at an auction of merchants’ goods. - B. Franklin

Today we park our cars in multilevel parking facilities at multilevel malls where a great number of people gather for ‘sales.’ The times have changed, but merchants still sell their goods and human nature remains the same.

The hour of the sale not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the times;

- B. Franklin

 Just like last week, or month, or year, times and topics remain consistent.

Some see the world as full of shadows and others see it as full of light. Those who live on the dark side tend to engage in negative talk and behavior while those on the side of light focus on more positive thoughts and activities — as you will discover was the case in 1758 as it is today.

The most interesting aspect of this behavior is that those who live on the dark side accomplish less than those who live on the light side. Is it a wonder? Not at all. Results reflect what people pay attention to.

Where is your attention focused?

 

A Brief History of the almanack - Part III

I therefore filled all the little spaces, that occurred between the remarkable days in the Calendar, with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality, as the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want to act always honestly, as (to use here one of those proverbs) “It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.”  B. Franklin

Benjamin Franklin wrote and quoted pithy sayings that motivated early Americans to work hard and save money so they could amass wealth and secure virtue. What a novel idea!

It’s especially worth noting that Benjamin Franklin does not suggest that the solution to the problem of poverty or economic failure is a function of government.

Early Americans were wary of any government intervention in their private lives. The British government’s incursion into the daily lives of everyday citizens was, in fact, what motivated the American Revolution.

What amazes most is that the principles laid out in ‘Poor Richard’s Almanack’ and summarized in ‘ The Way to Wealth’ worked for the founding fathers and for many generations after them.  It’s hard to be virtuous—have peace of mind and the freedom to serve our family, church, and country—when living in poverty.

It’s ever more challenging when living under the crushing weight of a government that has the power to give you everything you need and therefore the power to take it away.

Although the role of government in today’s more complex society is not precisely the same as it was at the time of the Revolution, the principles are the same.

Keeping the government from becoming the dictator—even the benevolent dictator—that keeps the individual “in want,” is still a worthy goal.

Think about that.

It’s a matter of choice…

A Brief History of the Almanack - Part II

And observing that it was generally read, (scarce any neighborhood in the province being without it,) I considered it as a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who bought scarcely any other books. B. Franklin

In today’s world of mass communication—TV, satellite radio, cell phones that are more powerful than the computers that put man on the moon, print on demand publishing and more than anything else, the internet—is it any wonder that Americans are overwhelmed and going in dozens of conflicting financial directions?

Not so in Benjamin Franklin’s day; his simple ‘Almanack’ touched almost everyone in America; the profound wisdom it conveyed contributed to the amazing social and economic accomplishments of individuals and of America as a whole.

In the past thirty years America has been tricked into thinking that the simple ideas found in ‘The Way to Wealth’ are somehow flawed. Americans have been misled and misinformed about how to

create wealth and manage money by greedy Wall Street Wonks and the Dolts in DC that lust for power.

BUNK!

The ‘Way to Wealth’ is still “a proper vehicle for conveying instruction” to Americans.

Think it through...

A Brief History of the Almanack - Part I

Introduction by Benjamin Franklin

Commentary by Dr Agon Fly

A Brief History of the Almanack…

In 1732 I first published my Almanack under the name of Richard Saunders; it was continued by me about twenty-five years, and commonly called Poor Richard’s Almanack. I endeavored to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such demand, that I reaped considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand. B. Franklin

Think about that!
That’s about ½ of 1% of the total population as subscribers and about 4% of the total population based on the size of the nuclear families of that time. In today’s terms, that would be over 12 million regular readers and millions more pass-along readers. Any publisher or writer would be pleased with that even today.

Imagine the influence this simple publication had on the thinking and behavior of early America. Recognize that the ideas, which lay as the foundation of the greatest economy in the history of the world, reach out to us today as much as they did when Benjamin Franklin published them in the early to mid 1700’s. It takes only the willingness of the reader to capture these ideas and use them to build a solid financial foundation.

Are you willing?

Introduction toThe Way to Wealth...

Welcome to what we hope is a life changing series of revalations from Benjamin Franklin and other of the Founding Fathers.

We start with Benjamin Franklin's seminal work, which played such a significant role in the definition and formation of the American spirit.

In 1758, Benjamin Franklin published the 25th and final issue of Poor Richard’s Almanack.  As a preface to this final edition, he wrote The Way to Wealth and introduced Father Abraham as the main character in the tale.

Father Abraham embodied the financial wisdom that “Poor” Richard Saunders—one of Benjamin Franklin’s many pen names—incorporated in the 25 years during which the Almanack was a staple on mantels above fireplaces, in personal libraries and on the tables of colonial America.

In 2008, on the 250th anniversary year of that event, Dr Agon Fly is adding a unique and timely perspective to this classic book about money and life. The money wisdom that Benjamin Franklin captured in The Way to Wealth is timeless. However, the vernacular of 1758 sometimes obscures the meaning for today’s economy and for the personal economies of 21st Century Americans.

Moreover, the archaic language, unfamiliar references, and skeletal commentary by Father Abraham sometimes hide the deeper meanings of the pithy sayings that form the bulk of the essay. Dr Agon Fly’s commentary adds sinew, muscle, and personality to the skeleton as it explains and clarifies the meaning of these pithy sayings.

Dr Agon Fly’s commentary also helps the reader move easily through proverbs captured by the tale to realize the essence of the messages about money, saving, investing, debt, taxes, and a variety of the other fundamental principles upon which Father Abraham suggests one build one’s life and personal economy.

In addition, Dr Agon Fly provides commentary on Father Abraham’s insights in 21st Century English. That commentary reflects knowledge of currently available financial products and services that were not available to Americans in 1758.

Dr Agon Fly’s comments are indented and italicized to set them apart from the original text of The Way to Wealth.

It is our earnest hope that both the original work of Benjamin Franklin and the thoughtful commentary of Dr Agon Fly inspires and motivates you.

We hope to post an entry or two each week and share the all of the secrets of Benjamin Franklin's The Way To Wealth with you before the end of 2010.

You can also expect some occasional commentary on current events that affect your ability to find your own way to wealth.