Lessons - The Billionaire "King of Bankruptcy" Who Rebuilt America's Broken Industries | Wilbur Ross - Fmr U.S. Secretary of Commerce & WL Ross Founder

WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.191 --> 00:00:07.035
In this lessons episode, discover how instant gratification and social media can reshape attitudes toward work, ownership, and success.

2
00:00:07.275 --> 00:00:10.637
Understand why building wealth requires patience and delayed gratification.

3
00:00:10.817 --> 00:00:18.642
Explore how short-term thinking can undermine financial security and uncover why hard work and personal responsibility remain essential for long-term independence.

4
00:00:26.698 --> 00:00:38.788
You've seen, I mean, I think that if you look at some of the CEOs of major tech companies, you see people that come from other parts of the world that move to the U.S. that take up these positions again, which is great.

5
00:00:39.369 --> 00:00:49.337
But you do have to have a culture of entrepreneurship, of hardworking, of not being afraid to build things and fail.

6
00:00:49.457 --> 00:00:53.941
And I think that we're moving so far from...

7
00:00:55.798 --> 00:01:02.443
people being willing to do uncomfortable work that we're not even talking about, like you said, entrepreneurship.

8
00:01:02.463 --> 00:01:06.106
We're just talking about people working a nine to five, Monday to Friday job.

9
00:01:06.626 --> 00:01:15.753
Because if you're gonna be a successful entrepreneur, like I came from a nine to five environment and I worked hard there, then I realized that

10
00:01:16.573 --> 00:01:22.056
I wasn't moving fast enough and my career wasn't progressing as quick as I wanted to, so then I'm going to take that into my own hands.

11
00:01:22.096 --> 00:01:28.299
And instead of working 9 to 5 Monday to Friday, I'm working 24-7, 365, but at least I can now move at my own pace.

12
00:01:29.134 --> 00:01:43.209
But the nine-to-five was, because I didn't have entrepreneurial parents, the nine-to-five was this little bit of like an incubation for me as a professional to then say, okay, this is great, but I want to go farther.

13
00:01:43.630 --> 00:01:46.893
If I had never even had the exposure to the nine-to-five or if I was –

14
00:01:47.654 --> 00:01:51.499
I see some people traveling all over the world and working in the gig economy.

15
00:01:51.599 --> 00:01:54.082
Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

16
00:01:54.463 --> 00:02:01.751
But if a culture promotes that and social media promotes lifestyle and all that stuff,

17
00:02:02.893 --> 00:02:15.702
I think that, again, another component that you didn't mention is we look on social, we think other people's lives are so great, and how can they work two hours a week and make a million dollars a year?

18
00:02:16.262 --> 00:02:18.084
Well, that's not reality.

19
00:02:18.464 --> 00:02:26.290
But social media is a megaphone, and it broadcasts this reality, and people assume it's the reality, so then they try and architect their lives like that.

20
00:02:26.670 --> 00:02:29.172
And amongst all the other things you mentioned, it's just a very...

21
00:02:31.128 --> 00:02:39.672
We're in a dangerous place, I think, because there's so much influence telling us how we should live or what hard work should be or shouldn't be.

22
00:02:40.212 --> 00:02:46.855
And I think that it's, I think we're kind of messing up the minds of a younger generation as to what life can look like.

23
00:02:47.325 --> 00:02:52.908
Well, I agree with that, and I think you see it in another context.

24
00:02:53.648 --> 00:02:58.451
It used to be people's dream was own your own home.

25
00:02:58.911 --> 00:03:00.892
That was a big, big dream.

26
00:03:01.372 --> 00:03:07.075
Get married, have a kid, own your own home was part of the cultural scene.

27
00:03:08.035 --> 00:03:12.858
Now, people are not so interested in owning things

28
00:03:13.518 --> 00:03:17.259
They seem to settle for having the use of things.

29
00:03:18.660 --> 00:03:26.362
There's even an industry now where people are renting their clothes rather than buying.

30
00:03:27.383 --> 00:03:35.025
I mean, what could be more weird and what could be more inefficient than renting your clothes?

31
00:03:35.565 --> 00:03:40.767
Because you know the guy renting them to you is making a high rate of returns.

32
00:03:41.350 --> 00:03:44.331
Well, where is his rate of return coming from?

33
00:03:44.351 --> 00:03:48.313
It's coming from you because you're such a fool.

34
00:03:48.733 --> 00:03:52.974
You won't even want to front end the price of your clothing.

35
00:03:53.694 --> 00:03:59.617
And so I think it's gotten to a very, very extreme point.

36
00:04:00.197 --> 00:04:02.918
There's nothing wrong with wanting to own things.

37
00:04:03.525 --> 00:04:17.356
And for most families, owning the home was central to their ability to develop some semblance of wealth, because homes tend to appreciate over time.

38
00:04:18.197 --> 00:04:22.601
My father had a pretty good saying, even though he was not wealthy.

39
00:04:23.321 --> 00:04:27.905
He said, I know a lot of people have gotten rich collecting rent.

40
00:04:28.406 --> 00:04:31.408
I don't know anybody who got rich paying rent.

41
00:04:32.740 --> 00:04:37.561
And that's a philosophy that the people don't seem to have.

42
00:04:38.121 --> 00:04:49.824
Everything is measured in terms of monthly payment, not am I earning something, not am I getting somewhere, not am I getting ahead.

43
00:04:49.944 --> 00:04:56.426
It's a whole attitudinal thing that, as you point out, is very, very dangerous.

44
00:04:57.594 --> 00:05:03.643
You know what I'm actually, I'm really concerned because it seems to be compounded with short-sightedness.

45
00:05:04.684 --> 00:05:10.032
What will happen is people will make enough money to rent their whole life.

46
00:05:10.733 --> 00:05:11.855
And then what happens is...

47
00:05:12.676 --> 00:05:25.674
When you can't work anymore or when you have some – when you get sick or when you're just of old age, you can't put in those hours or the cognitive performance just isn't there or the physical performance isn't there.

48
00:05:26.315 --> 00:05:27.757
I mean, we haven't really –

49
00:05:28.618 --> 00:05:31.920
seen that generation get to that age yet.

50
00:05:32.140 --> 00:05:45.466
And that's going to be scary unless something is done because the generation that is of the age that can no longer work, most of them will have pensions or they'll have some sort, or they came from the mentality of, I want to buy my house.

51
00:05:45.926 --> 00:05:48.067
I want to invest.

52
00:05:48.767 --> 00:05:50.548
Yeah, it's very scary.

53
00:05:50.648 --> 00:05:53.210
The people that are 70, 80, 90 now did not rent their clothes.

54
00:05:58.417 --> 00:05:59.538
when they were growing up.

55
00:06:00.239 --> 00:06:08.347
Well, a sociologist that I met at a cocktail party had an interesting encapsulation of that.

56
00:06:08.947 --> 00:06:19.037
He said one of the real problems of the younger generation is the inability to postpone immediate gratification.

57
00:06:19.838 --> 00:06:25.402
That's what leads to they want everything quick, easy, now, very accessible.

58
00:06:26.122 --> 00:06:31.526
The idea of saving up to buy a home is quite different from that.

59
00:06:31.826 --> 00:06:44.295
That generally, especially for younger people, used to mean some postponement of immediate gratification because you put away a little money, put away a little money.

60
00:06:44.735 --> 00:06:49.601
And then you got to do something by way of a home with it.

61
00:06:50.182 --> 00:06:54.948
But now they're happy to rent the house, happy to rent a car when they need it.

62
00:06:55.520 --> 00:06:57.441
happy to rent even their clothes.

63
00:06:58.222 --> 00:07:14.731
And it's a dead-end street because what they're doing is raising their current cost of living to the point where they're not going to be able, as you point out, to have something to take care of them later on.

64
00:07:15.352 --> 00:07:17.253
And that, in turn, is important.

65
00:07:19.097 --> 00:07:27.484
producing and encouraging a very unfortunate relationship between the population and government.

66
00:07:28.165 --> 00:07:41.016
Remember the old communist manifesto, the way to make socialism permanent is first of all get to where a majority of the adult population pays no tax.

67
00:07:41.637 --> 00:07:43.318
Well we're just about there.

68
00:07:44.359 --> 00:07:45.020
Second is,

69
00:07:45.540 --> 00:07:49.128
get to the point where a majority of the adult population

70
00:07:49.621 --> 00:07:52.443
depends on government for its livelihood.

71
00:07:53.023 --> 00:07:57.165
That's where we're starting to head with all these programs.

72
00:07:57.785 --> 00:08:09.012
And once we get through that second thing, if we do, unfortunately, and most people pay no tax and are dependent on government, forget it.

73
00:08:09.652 --> 00:08:18.937
Society as we've known it, our culture as we've known it, and tragically, our economy as we've known it will be no more.

74
00:08:20.297 --> 00:08:28.605
Talk to me about, I want to talk about your transition to public service, but can you just explain that point?

75
00:08:29.346 --> 00:08:36.293
Because I understand being dependent on government, but can you explain the pay no tax point?

76
00:08:37.310 --> 00:08:50.539
Well, it is arithmetically true that almost half of adult Americans do not pay any tax because they have all these tax credits in refund.

77
00:08:51.220 --> 00:09:03.448
When the government says, I'm going to give you a tax credit for having a child, let's say, now that may be a worthwhile idea to help people have children.

78
00:09:04.148 --> 00:09:04.369
But

79
00:09:05.289 --> 00:09:17.497
What it works out to in reality is if you don't have enough income that you're really paying tax, you get that money directly.

80
00:09:17.517 --> 00:09:23.381
So instead of being what it's presented as, which is just a tax credit, it's not.

81
00:09:23.901 --> 00:09:29.284
It's an actual gift to the people who don't have taxable income.

82
00:09:29.305 --> 00:09:29.945
Yeah.

83
00:09:30.462 --> 00:09:33.287
And in some cases, even if they do, it's small.

84
00:09:33.788 --> 00:09:40.018
And again, it becomes a cash payment rather than a tax credit.

85
00:09:40.158 --> 00:09:42.702
So it encourages the wrong behavior, basically.

86
00:09:43.187 --> 00:09:44.387
Yes, yes.

87
00:09:45.288 --> 00:09:48.369
And I'm not opposed to childcare.

88
00:09:48.389 --> 00:09:50.710
I'm not opposed to people having families.

89
00:09:50.930 --> 00:09:53.270
Obviously, those are important.

90
00:09:53.911 --> 00:10:05.494
But when you create those two things, nobody pays tax and people are dependent on government, now you've changed the whole society.

91
00:10:06.395 --> 00:10:09.516
And it's a very, very slippery slope.

92
00:10:10.216 --> 00:10:27.462
because the theory of it is that somehow the rest of society can afford not only to maintain themselves, but pay the bills to government to maintain the half that aren't working, that aren't productive.

93
00:10:28.182 --> 00:10:33.444
Well, that's a very different world from the world that we used to have.