Sunday, August 22, 1999
Everyone's getting rich online except you and me
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
I want to be rich. I want to retire now. It's a little late, I know. I'm already 41. But I plan to make up for lost time.
I want to be a millionaire investing $50 a month. If I up it to $500 a month, I can be the Sultan of Brunei or Ken Griffey Jr.
I can own the world. I'm surprised I don't already.
It's all there for me. I read all the magazines. I buy the 10 Mutual Funds You Must Own Now! I invest in the 10 Winning Stock Plays For the Millennium! I manage my own portfolio with my exclusive online broker: www.loseyourshirt.com.
I know what I know, and I am a wheel. A big wheel.
I could have retired a few months back, cashing in stock options from America Online and driving to the club in a Jaguar convertible. But I like what I do for a living. It amuses me.
Anybody can be a millionaire, probably by this afternoon. There is no need for work. Work is what they do in other countries. Here, we speculate on The Next Big Thing.
We use the Internet like the 49ers used maps for gold mines. Online investing is nothing more than prospecting.
They panned for gold 150 years ago; we sit before a screen. The results are the same. A few fortunates find gold; everyone else buys Amazon at $220.
No matter. This isn't hard, this getting rich. Just log on and press a few buttons.
People go to fine schools for years, to learn to manage money. They turn pro after college. Some have been doing it longer than a week or two.
We don't trust them. We know better. We wouldn't dream of removing our own spleens, or of building our own mansions after four years of majoring in anthropology. But we'll go to a seminar or two and confidently spin the wheel with our life savings.
The country is flush. The culture has always celebrated money, but never more than now. Before, if you were wealthy, you were regaled and admired. You were powerful and influential. You never had to wait for a table. Italians made your suits.
Now, if you are not wealthy, you are an idiot.
The simple and rational way to save money is to get a college degree, don't job-hop, invest in proven companies and stay married. These are not simple and rational times.
Now, what you do is day-trade and find the next Yahoo! Strike it rich. Hit the mother lode. Work? Save? Invest? That's old school.
But usually, you don't find The Next Big Thing until someone else has. True story:
Several years ago, professional football players started appearing on the TV screen, wearing what looked like Band-Aids across the bridges of their noses.
Announcers had a great time with this. John Madden, who never met a dripping orifice he didn't glorify, began circling the nose-aid with his Telestrator. Jerry Rice always wore one. Rice was a great wide receiver with the San Francisco 49ers, the world's best team at the time.
I said to some of my neighbor friends, “Check out Rice's nose. I got no idea what that thing is, but 10 zillion people are watching him wear it on Monday Night Football. We need to get a piece of that.”
We hemmed. We hawed. We hem-hawed. When we first checked the price of the stock for the Breathe-Right nose strip, it was just over $2. When we decided to make our big play, it was $21.
Some people fall into money. Some are born into it. Some go from hauling garbage to designing obscure Web sites to cashing in stock options for millions and retiring at 25.
The rest of us bust bricks and buy Breathe Right at $21.
Paul Daugherty, an Enquirer sports columnist, writes a lifestyle column on Sunday. He welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
