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Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Lessons - Success Takes Sacrifice | Wilbur Ross - Commerce Secretary & Billionaire Investor
00:10:57
In this "Lessons" episode, Wilbur Ross, former US Secretary of Commerce, shares his insights on why renting is ruining your future. He explains how the modern pursuit of instant gratification undermines long-term financial stability by shifting our focus from building wealth through ownership to sustaining a cycle of perpetual renting. Ross argues that relying on rentals—not only for homes but increasingly for everyday items—erodes financial independence and accelerates government dependency, ultimately jeopardizing economic freedom for future generations.
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- [00:00]
A
In this Lessons episode, discover how shifting away from traditional ownership is reshaping our culture. Learn why the pursuit of instant gratification undermines long term financial stability. Understand how reliance on renting over owning jeopardizes future independence. And uncover the risks of growing government dependency in modern society. I mean, you, you've seen, you've. I mean, I think that if you look at some of the CEOs of, of major tech companies, you see people that come from other parts of the world that move to the US that take up these positions again, which is great. But you, you do have to have a culture of entrepreneurship, of, of hard working, of not being afraid to build things and fail. And I think that we're moving so far from people being willing to do uncomfortable work that we're not even talking about, like you said, entrepreneurship. We're just talking about people working a 9 to 5 Monday to Friday job. Because if you're going to be a successful entrepreneur, like I came from a 9 to 5 environment and I worked hard there. Then I realized that 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 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. But the 9 to 5 was, because I didn't have entrepreneurial parents, the 9 to 5 was this, this a little bit of like an incubation for me as a professional to then say, okay, this is great, but I want to go farther. If I had never even had the exposure to the 9 to 5, or if I was, I see some people traveling all over the world and working in the gig economy. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But if a culture promotes that and social media promotes lifestyle and all that, I think that, 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, you know, a million dollars a year? Well, that's not reality. 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. And amongst all the other things you mentioned, it's just a very, we're in a, 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. 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.
- [02:49]
B
Well, I agree with that. And I think you see it in another context. It used to be people's dream was own your own home. That was a big, big dream. Get married, have a kid, own, own your own home was part of the cultural scene. Now people are not so interested in owning things. They seem to settle for having the use of things. There's even an industry now where people are renting their clothes rather than buying them. What could be more weird and what could be efficient than renting your clothes? Because, you know the guy renting them to you is making a high rate of return. Well, where is his rate of return coming from? It's coming from you, because you're such a fool, you won't even want to front end the price of your clothing. And so I think it's gotten to a very, very extreme point. There's nothing wrong with wanting to own things. 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. My father had a pretty good saying, even though he was not wealthy. He said, I know a lot of people got rich collecting rent. I don't know anybody who got rich paying rent. And that's a philosophy that the people don't seem to have. Everything is measured in terms of monthly payment. Not am I owning something, not am I getting somewhere, not am I getting ahead. Uh, it's a whole attitudinal thing that, that, as you point out, is very, very dangerous.
- [04:59]
A
You know what, I'm actually, I'm really concerned because it seems to be compounded with shortsightedness. What will happen is people will make enough money to rent their whole life. And then what happens when you can't work anymore? Or when you have some, when you, when you get sick or, or when you 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? I mean, we haven't really seen that generation get to that age yet. 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, I want to invest. Yeah, it's very scary. People that are 70 80, 90 now, did not rent their clothes when they were growing up.
- [06:01]
B
Well, a sociologist that I met at a cocktail party had an interesting encapsulation of that. He said one of the real problems of the younger generation is the inability to postpone immediate gratification. That's what leads to they want everything quick, easy, now, very accessible. The idea of saving up to buy a home is quite different from that 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 and then you got to do something by way of a home with it. But now they're happy to rent the house, happy to rent a car when they need it, happy to rent even their clothes. 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. And that in turn is producing and encouraging the very unfortunate relationship between the population and government. 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. Well, we're just about there. Second is get to the point where a majority of the adult population depends on government for its livelihood. That's where we're starting to head with all these programs. 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. 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.
- [08:21]
A
Talk to me about, actually just, I want to talk about your transition to public service, but can you just explain that point? Because I understand being dependent on government, but can you explain the pay no tax point?
- [08:39]
B
Well, it is arithmetically true that almost half the battle, Americans do not pay any tax because they have all these tax credits in refund. 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, but 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. So instead of being what it's presented as, which is just a tax credit slot, it's an actual gift to the people who don't have taxable income. And in some cases even if they do, it's small and again it becomes a tax a cash payment rather than a tax credit.
- [09:41]
A
So it encourages the wrong behavior Basically.
- [09:44]
B
Yes, yes and I'm not opposed to child care. I'm not opposed to people having families. Obviously those are important but when you create those two things nobody pays tax and people are dependent on government. Now you've changed the whole society and it's a very very slippery slope 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. Well that's a very different world from the world that we used to have.
- [10:35]
A
Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.
- [10:52]
B
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