[RainMan]

Your logic is absurd at best. By your own definition, no business can make money because it is dependent on customers, ergo, only the Fed can make money by running a printing press. Money is simply a standard for trade. Yes, you always have to have trade partners, and you make money on the transactions. The point I thought you were making was not how to transact business, but rather how do you as an individual make money (and I assumed you meant real money, not just a paycheck)


I think I can actually give you a better point-of-view to your original post. Rather than say "make somebody else money", or "be hard to replace", change it to 1 simple statement: Be willing to take risks.

The more risk you take, whether it be starting your own business, or working on commission, the more potential money you will make. When you take a risk however, there is also the chance you will crash and burn. If you want safety and security, work for someone else and accept whatever they pay you, but if you want more ... take a risk.

To everyone else here, I apologize for the rabbit hole this conversation went down ...

[discostu]

No, my logic is bothering to understand how economics actually works. Nope, that’s not my definition, that’s you making up a strawman that bears no actual resemblance to what I said. My example a business can’t make money without ALSO making somebody else money. That somebody else could be advertisers, suppliers, investors, and many others. Because that’s how it works. You can’t have something to sell without... well having something to sell, which means somebody else is making money. You need a location, gotta pay somebody for that. You need people to be aware of you, gotta pay somebody for that. All that starting capital had to come from somewhere, and they expect a return on that investment.

I was talking about how you as an individual make money, but how you as an individual make money is a BUSINESS TRANSACTION which might or might not include a paycheck.

Nope, you don’t have to be willing to take risks. In facts risks, being risks, are often a TERRIBLE way to make money. There’s plenty of people in this world making tons of money following the safe path of getting the “desirable” degree in the “right” school and getting into the “stable” business and working their corporate ladder. The CEO of my company never took a single risk, he has the classic “how to become a CEO” resume going back to his high school clubs. Heck even self driving like your property flipping isn’t that risky (at least if you’re doing it right), especially not in 2016 with literally decades worth of TV shows showing how to do it. Nope, risk is not a good way to make money, any professional gambler can tell you that. That path is actually: doing things that look risky to anybody who hasn’t done their homework, but if you actually know what you’re doing you’re playing the odds and on a safe path.

I stand by what I said because that is the truth of how economics works. If you want to make money you need to make somebody else money (that’s where your money comes from in the long run) and be hard to replace (because that’s why they give YOU the money and not somebody else, and the more rarefied the skill set the more you get, as limited by the first part).