“Wait this shit sucks, nevermind.”
-Mike Black, probably
It is honestly impressive that with (presumably) only hard work, an education, a lifetime of business experience, and the kindness of strangers, he was able to work his way up to 6.4% of his goal.
A regular Ozymandias, that one.
I don’t get it, why didn’t he just pull up his bootstraps?
He should have cut out the avocado toast
He was never even truly homeless. He had a lot of free help from others.
Its the daily mail. Nazi paper. Probably went for his throat as he’s seen as a champagne socialist.
How is this possible? Either he didn’t work hard enough or there are systematic barriers to accumulating wealth, because the game is rigged against poor people so that rich people can steal the value of their time and labor.
He must not have worked hard enough.
The problem was that his bootstraps weren’t strong enough when he was homeless. So okay, you’ve convinced the Republicans. A subsidized boostrap program for the homeless is okay. For now.
My question is, how did he pay for his medical care? The article says he was in and out of the doctor’s office - how did he pay for that? Medical bills are a very common reason people declare bankruptcy, and the cost of care can easily derail even the best planning and saving.
To me, THAT is the most unrealistic part. Was he using his existing wealth to get care? If that’s the case, then the entire thing is void. Also, having medical issues to deal with and overcome is just part of life for many. Quitting simply so you can go back to your ultra cushy lifestyle to better deal with medical issues that cause exhaustion and joint pain is missing the point entirely.
Somewhere in the article or in the title or in the captions it mentions the word “family” once. He clearly had some network of support. Friends, family, born into wealth…
Based on the URL, I think this was in the UK, so the healthcare was already paid for.
Possibly, but I quickly checked one of the videos with the guy in it and he doesn’t have a British accent of any kind - it’s American midwestish.
did you mean “doesn’t?”
Oops! I did indeed lol. Lemme fix that!
Oh, weird. And I know from personal experience that signing up for Medicaid and the like that it’s not a fast process and he probably isn’t even signed up by this point. I suppose he could have contributed to unnecessarily over-burdening the emergency medical system, which I only begrudge him for because he had the option to do otherwise. To be clear, I do not think poorly of those who go to the ER because they have no other options. They are why I am doing my best to get a really good foundation in primary care medicine during medical school while intending on going into emergency medicine. This guy though? If I knew his whole background, I’d be hard-pressed to want to do more than the EMTALA basics for him.
I’m watching this guys youtube video explaining his side and his rebuttal is actually very simple. In his expirement, he did not say anything about being homeless and he never said that you can earn a million dollars in one year. His goal was to have a template showing how to build a business. I still think he didn’t learn anything. He is just a super entrepreneurial guy who thinks that he is helping people by encouraging them to start a business and that grind culture can give you a better life. He seems to not want to look above his own place in our system and encourage any substantive change in the social safety net of the US. I’m glad he realized that being a good son, when his dad is dying of cancer, is more important than being a hustler. But he doesn’t seem to have internalized the idea that being a good human is more important than being a hustler on a normal day.
Since you watched some of his content, and I’m bluntly, not willing to do that, I’d like to ask, what did he do? Just put his wealth into holdings and not touch it? Did he transfer his funds and property to someone for safe keeping while he embarked on this misguided adventure? Or what?
Clearly, he didn’t give his money away or anything, or he couldn’t really quit, since that would leave him quite poor compared to when he started.
I’m wondering if he mentions that, or if it’s just a “trust me bro” kind of deal. Regardless of his answer, I’m rather sad that it doesn’t seem like the dose of reality he got really taught him anything.
Hell, I could probably make it more than half way to being a millionaire if I cut pretty much all of my spending on important things like my mortgage, moved into a small, cheap (and crappy) apartment, spent all my time “hustling” and did nothing that cost money regardless of how much I might enjoy it… At least doing that for a few years might get me fairly close.
I’m also pretty sure that if I did that, everyone I know would start to hate me for abandoning them, my SO would leave me, I’d probably even be excommunicated by my brother and his wife (who share the cost of the mortgage right now), and I’d make a nontrivial number of enemies along the way. But hey, this small pile of money will comfort me, right? RIGHT?
Anyways, it seems like a stupid thing to even consider. I’d rather be broke, and living a very modest and happy life with friends and family who I support, than have money. So I’m doing the thing where I choose happy over money.
I can’t watch much of his content because it is just like any other grind culture, serial entrepreneur angle. He was running a company, I think its a marketing consulting firm or something like that. He stepped away from the business which can be run by other people but he felt he could’ve grown it more if he stayed active. I think he’s basically up the ladder of a entrepreneur pyramid scheme.
And I agree with your quality of life comment. It is a shame that he stays so committed to serial entrepreneurship as an overall positive thing for everybody. He said one person was inspired by his optimism and work that the viewer was inspired to work on a business and it saved his life. So one person was helped by this project and the millionaire was very touched. I would have hoped saw that quality time with family is more important regardless of your wealth. And he could’ve also realized that people are generous by nature and that we should take care of each other more than trying to accumulate wealth and grow a business with no motivation outside of the accumulation of wealth.
Unrelated, but are y’all really linking the daily mail?
Aka ‘Millionaire attempts to prove that homelessness is a choice.’
Of course he would.
I agree that the experiment was successful. He showed that through hard work and determination, shady scumbag online retailing and destroying your body, you might be able to make 65k. The main way people get wealthy is to be born wealthy. The rest of us can just look forward to trading our limited time and delicate health to scrape out a meager paycheck-to-paycheck existence.
Don’t forget he needed the charity of others in order to do so.
If you read the article, you find that this piece of shit still thinks the experiment was a success, because he managed to make $64,000 in 10 months by taking advantage of the generosity of others.
Like that time Oprah tried to sleep outside and gave before the day was out. They so fucking out of touch it sickening. Eat the rich.
There was a government official here in the Philippines that said traffic in manila was not that bad. He was challenged to commute to work for a day. Long story short he was late going to the office. He got there because a good Samaritan gave him a ride on th back of his motorcycle. He still have the gall to say that the traffic was not that bad.
So I guess he kind of did solve the problem, right? I mean, if homeless people fail at the challenge of obtaining a million dollars in one year, they can always just quit being homeless. Should take less that 10 months, max.
concerns about his health led him to end the challenge early after facing the harsh realities of homelessness and his own health issues
‘My personal health has declined to the point where I really need to start taking care of it. Throughout the entire project, we haven’t shared it with you, but I’ve been in and out of the doctor’s office.’
Health concerns? Bitch, you’re supposed to swallow that shit up and work anyway
Black wanted to help his friends rebuild their lives and prove that luck or money was not necessary to become a millionaire - just hard work.
Spoiler alert: he was wrong
Black started off small and managed to make his first $300 by selling furniture online.
‘One of the best things to sell are tables,’ Black explained. 'I started taking ads on Craigslist in the free section, putting it on Facebook Marketplace and selling it for a profit.
‘I acted as the middleman, handling all the logistics between the buyer and the seller.’
Not exactly what I’d call hard work, but shitty assholery
Despite failing to make the million dollars he had aimed for, Black says it was still a successful experiment after demonstrating how it was possible to rebuild his life through the power of determination.
Power of my fucking ass, balance those 64k you made with paying your dad’s chemo and your own health.
Also a noteworthy comment from a reader:
Not to mention the entrepreneurial and computing skills that he had - that he didn’t pick up while living in poverty on the streets.
Not exactly what I’d call hard work, but shitty assholery
Giving someone shit because they can sell things that others give away for free is… interesting.
There isn’t a business on the planet that doesn’t make more money than they pay for what they do. The guy literally took what others were throwing away and effectively recycled their trash and made a profit on it. When you are starting with literally nothing you need to find money somehow.
I bought a dresser from a guy with a storage unit full of furniture he buys from estate sales. I don’t have time to go to estate sales. I got a pretty awesome deal on the piece I got. Even if the got it for free or by running a 800 got junk type deal I would not hate. Better than another thing in the landfill!
Where do you draw the line between this and flipping houses?
Ur gonna be mad at dude who’s homeless for getting a free house? Ok buddy.
They want their cut. Nobody with less than them can be given anything without them getting their cut. They had to work for it so why shouldn’t everyone else!!111
Seems to be the mentality anyway. “igmfy” It’s why people are anti-immigration (we’re all immigrants if you go back far enough.) It’s why they don’t want social service programs (taxing ME is theft, tax those others!), they sure as shit don’t want free education (hurr durr I paid for mine / I didn’t need it so why should I pay for theirs!!1111oneone)
It blows my mind that so many don’t want any change to the status quo because things were shit for them. It’s like at some point the resentment for being handed a shit deal is replaced by resentment for others who haven’t made it yet.
No I’m talking about making profit by acquiring something for less than it’s worth (the proof of this being that you are able to find someone who will pay more for it, during a short enough time frame that it is worth your time to do so)
People are quick to shit on real estate “investors”, this is kinda the same thing.
I moved recently and instead of dealing with the hassle of having to haggle, I decided to post on an internal company channel and give away all my stuff to coworkers. Since I was going to get charged for disposal, having a random unknown coworker (presumably a trusted person) come to my place and take away stuff for me for free was actually saving me money. Plus I don’t have to deal with actual strangers from Facebook who would probably try and haggle last minute. I got value out of that transaction.
But what if those coworkers sold my furniture instead of keeping it for themselves? Is that somehow dishonorable? What if someone decided to have their entire income be based off flipping furniture like this?
And if you’re OK with all of that, why not keep going and flip houses? It’s the same shit. You are not improving the product in any way (and sometimes house flippers do renovate). Or do things magically change because of the Barrier to entry?
But what if those coworkers sold my furniture instead of keeping it for themselves? Is that somehow dishonorable?
If you’re going to bring honor into it, yeah it can be pretty dishonorable. Your worker would be using his privileged position of access to people who are in a financial position to just discard valuable goods, and if he’s then reselling those at market rate rather than cost plus, then he’s not so much compensating himself for the work of reselling the products as he is exploiting the ignorance of his customers to maximize profit.
And if we understand honor be rooted in transparency, honesty, fairness, etc (which is what we immediately think of when we think of an “honorable” fight or dual, for example), then yes that can be very dishonorable.
So it’s the seller’s responsibility to say “BTW I got this for free so you should pay me less” even if the product is of objective X quality?
All these comment chains are bonkers, yo.
Back to the main article, the entire point was supposed to be that the guy was making money by being a middle man that spent their time handling logistics in a way that made it worthwhile to acquire a thing and sell it to someone who felt they were getting a good deal. That’s much more value than “herp deep I’m a landlord, where’s my rent”.
“Using their privilege of being a coworker of someone who is in a position where it’s more valuable to them to give away furniture cuz it’s more annoying to sell it” is kind of a stretch. Not that it should matter but the vast majority of my shit was IKEA garbage from 11 years ago.
Don’t get me wrong, this is among the least offensive iterations of the phenomen, but middlemen can be pretty shitty in any transaction.
Sometimes they provide a useful service, acting as a sort of external sales and marketing department for producers who for whatever reason don’t have the mechanisms in place to get their products out to their would-be consumers.
But who likes a scalper? Who believes that a guy with an automated purchasing script is adding value to Taylor Swift tickets? Or that the people buying multiple PS5s during the early days just to resell them were providing a useful intermediary service? No one.
And likewise taking something you don’t want off of Craigslist before someone who actually wants it can get it, only to flip it on another site, doesn’t add value or provide a useful service.
There’s a pretty big difference. Furniture is easily accessible to everyone. Just about anyone can find someone selling their used furniture online, or even buy brand new at reasonable prices. I’ve never heard of a furniture shortage gripping an entire generation of people.
There isn’t a business on the planet that doesn’t make more money than they pay for what they do.
Yes, but usually they do something that provides value. A mechanic charges you more than their costs, but they are also charging for their expertise and skill.
When you are starting with literally nothing you need to find money somehow.
Nothing except for the internet, a device to access it, and a method of transportation. Also presumably somewhere to sleep, shower, and wash his clothes. And the ability to see a doctor anytime.
Also, it’s interesting how his method of gaining wealth depended on the generosity of others giving him things for free. It’s right there: when you have “literally nothing” you need help from other people to get started.
Yes, but usually they do something that provides value. A mechanic charges you more than their costs, but they are also charging for their expertise and skill.
Not all jobs are that clear cut though. Most white collar jobs are bullshit (sauce: been working in corporate environments for close to 15 years.)
Car Salesmen are useless for me. They’re still legally required. They get paid WAY too much to swindle grandparents out of a few thousand dollars per car.
Real Estate Agents generally do not produce any real value but are again required. 4-5% commissions for selling a home which today in the boston area is a median of over 700k. Don’t try and tell me that $35k of effort goes into creating a listing and doing a showing, and helping someone throw in a bid. It should be a couple thousand at most. Sales here are almost always a weekend of two open houses then offers due on tuesday… and then a P&S is signed on Friday.
If car salesmen and real estate agents are so valuable, then i’m sure a middleman finding furniture and reposting it on other sites that are more visited than craigslist free section and taking a commission is hardly any more dubious. After all the agents and salesmen in these cases do not create any value - they didn’t build the car or ship it over or really do anything except maybe detail it before delivery, even the paperwork is done by others! Same deal with the agents… they arent the lawyer, mortgage broker, house inspector etc which you still pay yourself out of pocket as closing costs as a buyer.
Anyway, yeah I totally agree about people needing handouts to get on their feet. I’m very much for housing the homeless and giving basic necessities to all (basic shelter, food, water, basic clothes, internet, electricity, smart phone.) We just aren’t that kind of nation though. We’d rather prop up insurance companies and pharma profits than lift a finger for the homeless. “IGMFY” is the way the US works, mostly.
Car Salesmen are useless for me.
“These professions perform a similar function and I think they’re useless. That makes this worthwhile” is certainly an interesting take.
It sounds like you agree that obtaining free furniture and selling it for money is just as parasitic as a Car Salesman or Real Estate Agent.
Of course presumably the Car Salesman or Retail Agent also brings some expertise to the situation that is not needed for flipping furniture.
The more I think about it, the more I think he’s right about these jobs adding no value.
power of determination and importance of health and family
what if you don’t have your health and family? it’s almost like a lot of people become homeless because of health issues and lack of support.
Of course the “everybody just needs to work hard to get rich” guy gravitated immediately towards shitty parasitic schemes that take advantage of others.
Enriching (barely) himself by making things slightly worse for numerous other people. I’m shocked. Shocked! Well, not that shocked.
“OMG there is money on the table here!!”
“…no, I just want to give it away and someone who needs a table can be happy to get one for free.”
“Mmmmmmooooonnnneeeyyyy ooonnn ttthhheee tttttaaaabbbllleee!!!” (Capitalist head explodes)
It seems simple, but I think it’s a perfect example of the underlying shittiness in our culture, where you are a bad or dumb person for not taking advantage of people when you have the opportunity. If you manage to do it a lot, you get admired for your hustle. If you make more money than you could ever spend and you STILL keep doing it 12 hours a day, we’ll put you on the cover of a magazine!
(I’m speaking from a US perspective, because we are great at exploiting each other, but it happens all over the world)
Despite failing to make the million dollars he had aimed for, Black says it was still a successful experiment after demonstrating how it was possible to rebuild his life through the power of determination.
Bro really achieved 6.4% of the goal and called it a success
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
sounds like a passing grade to me /s
Try it with:
- No state-issued ID (and depending on the state, missing pre-reqs for getting one)
- No bank account
- Outstanding debt
- Bad credit
- Blemished background check
- No recent rental history (or recent evictions)
We have plenty of ways to mark people as undesirable, which are harder to fix than having zero cash on hand.
Also: the dude was in and out of the doctors office,.obviously didn’t give up his health coverage, and had a relationship with both of his parents.
