CEOs Are Not Capitalists
Later in this book I’ll write about the fact that most CEOs are not capitalists. Most CEOs and corporate executives fall into a category called managerial capitalists, employees who work for real entrepreneurs—entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Mark Zuckerberg, and others—but who have no personal financial stake or investment in the business.
Interestingly enough, Edison and Disney did not complete high school. Jobs and Zuckerberg never graduated college.
Most “A” students, graduates from our finest schools, become “managerial capitalists”—employees—rather than “true capitalists.” It is these managerial capitalists, typically “A” students who land high-paying jobs, who give capitalism a bad name.
Managerial Capitalists Are Scary
In his book, What Americans Really Want… Really, Dr. Luntz states:
“… in today’s world, ‘capitalists’ frighten people and ‘capitalism’ is short hand for CEOs taking tens of millions of dollars on the same day their pens wipe out 10,000 jobs.”
Tragically, many people do not understand the difference between managerial capitalists and true capitalists.
Just think of the CEOs who were paid huge bonuses, while millions lost their jobs, their homes, and their retirement nest eggs. Is this what our schools teach our best and brightest young people?
Again, the answer is “Yes.” Our schools give capitalism a bad name, because what they teach is not true capitalism.
Unfortunately, most parents are proud when little Johnny or Susie graduates at the top of their class and is hired by a Fortune 500 firm earning a six-figure salary at the age of 26 and begins climbing the ladder. Most parents do not care that their child has been trained to be a managerial capitalist, rather than a true capitalist, an entrepreneur like Steve Jobs or Thomas Edison. Today we have a global crisis because:
• Schools are more focused on greed not generosity.
• Schools are about “How much money can I make?” versus “How much money can I make serving others?”
• Schools are about finding a high-paying job rather than creating high-paying jobs.
• Schools are about climbing the corporate ladder rather than creating companies and corporate ladders.
• Schools are about job security rather than financial freedom, which is why most employees live in fear of “losing their jobs.”
• Schools teach little to nothing about money, which is why millions of people now believe in entitlement programs, like Social Security and Medicare in the United States. And millions take jobs in government or military service, not to serve their country but for the retirement and medical benefits.
The New Depression
In 2007, the world awoke to the New Depression. There are many reasons for this modern-day depression. A few of them are:
1. Governments printing money.
2. Trillions of dollars of debt, both personal and governmental.
3. Underfunded entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare in the United States and a growing entitlement mentality all over the world.
4. High youth unemployment and student loan debt that can damage a student’s “credit worthiness.”
5. Globalization, including workers in emerging countries working for less and causing jobs to be exported, leading to lower wages at home.
These are the problems your child will face.
The Emperor Has No Clothes!
So the question parents should ask is: Are schools preparing my child for the real world?
The answer is “No.”
And so the plot thickens. As Hans Christian Anderson warned us in 1837 in his tale of the Emperor:
Soon the whisper spread from person to person until everyone in the crowd began shouting, “The emperor has no clothes.”
The emperor heard it, of course, and although he knew they were correct, that he was stark naked in front of the town, he held his head high and finished the procession.
It seems to me that the school system cannot admit they are not preparing children for the real world. That would be admitting to failure—and we all know what failure means in the school system.
It means the school thinks your child is not smart—but it really only means that your child isn’t doing what the school tells them to do.
Without financial education, your child will leave school naked. He or she might be an “A” student… but they will be parading through life like the emperor.
As the tale goes:
“Although he knew he was naked, he never admitted it for fear that he was too unfit and stupid to see that he was wearing nothing. He too was afraid that the townspeople would think that he was stupid.”
Since our schools will never admit that they are not preparing your child for the real world, it is up to parents—a child’s first and most important teachers—to give children the financial education required for the real world, a world that runs on money.
ARE SCHOOLS PREPARING YOUR CHILD FOR THE REAL WORLD?
Modern-Day Version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain, 1876
School is a great experience for some children. For others, school is the worst experience of their lives.
Every child has a genius. Unfortunately, their genius may not be recognized by the educational system. Their genius may even be crushed.
Thomas Edison, one of the great geniuses of modern times, was labeled “addled” by his first teacher. Addled means “mixed up or confused.” He never finished school, and instead became an inventor and an entrepreneur. The company he founded, known today as General Electric, creates products that have changed the world. A few of Edison’s early projects were the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the electric light bulb.
Albert Einstein also failed to impress his teachers. From elementary school through college, his teachers thought he was lazy, sloppy, and insubordinate. Most of his teachers said, “He will not amount to anything.” Yet Einstein became one of the most influential scientists in history.
Genius is an acronym for “Geni-in-us”—the genie or magician in each of us.
All parents have met the genius in their child. Most parents know that a child’s true genius is found in their dreams. We see glimpses of it from an early age… the ideas and things that delight them, fascinate them, and challenge them.
Protecting and nurturing the genius in your child is a parent’s most important