Where is the American Dream kive and well?

[MossRoad]

I have to somewhat disagree with Grand rapids mi. having low crime and light traffic.I live in southern lower mi. and watch WOTV out of GR.It seems they have quite a bit of crime there.28th street traffic is no charm to drive in.On the other hand congrats to you and your wife on your new twins and for working hard and living the dream.

Just be glad you aren't down here in South Bend.... :laughing:

 

[Redneck in training]

What makes a person leave his homeland for another country, rather than stay and make your homeland a great place. Tell us about how you get to that point, was it survival or did you want and dream of being an American. Are you a citizen today? HS

Yes, I am US citizen. It was part of desperation and ambition. I am very much like my father. My father was smart and ambitious man. Always tinkering with something. His ambition was to make stuff and make world a better place. When he was about 20 years old (1945) he built a motorcycle that was quite few years ahead of time. Then 1948 commies took over and put end to any ambitions. They put you in the line and if you stepped out they beat you back in it. My father had several inventions. By law, if invention either saved money or made money, the inventor was entitled to a substantial reward stipulated by the law. One time he invented and made a device for repairing seats of shut off gates for hydro power station. The financial saving on first gate was very large sum but he was told that he had to make a vice president of his employer co inventor or he will not see any money. Shortly after the prototype was made and successfully used to repair one of the gates he found that his name was not on the invention and that the inventor is the vice president. He decided to sue and the secretary responsible for the invention log told him that she will testify that the paperwork was falsified. She was immediately fired, both she and her husband were threatened and she decided not to testify. My father never saw a single dime from the reward. He was also harassed by his schoolmate who was in the ****** jugeng during the war and right after the war became the biggest communist capo in the village. To make the story short my father died at young age 54 because he wanted to. He started smoking late in life and became a chain smoker, developed heart trouble and refused to see a doctor. My mother was begging him to go to hospital but he refused and died few years alter. After he died I told myself I will end up the same way and leaving the country was constantly on my mind. To leave was not simple though. There were soldiers on the border shooting to kill (dead people are not trouble), mine fields and in many places there were three fences the middle one had I think 600 V on it to kill. If you would see pictures of Nazzi concentration camp you would see where they got the idea. There was several miles wide restricted strip of land along the border full of electronic sensors the government spend billions on. If we wanted to go in example to Yugoslavia for vacation we had to apply year in advance and pay nonrefundable fee to get the permission to leave the country. I tried several times but was always denied. Then when I was 37 I suddenly got the permission. I left the country 1985. Never made it to Adriatic sea where I was supposed to spend vacation but crossed the border to Italy in Nova Gorica/Goricia. Applied for political asylum, spent almost a year in refugee camp and made it to the USA as political refugee in February 1986. When I left Czechslovakia it looked like the communism would be there forever but it fortunately self destructed few years later in 1989. Later on my brother told me that the secret police archives were made public and all our family was labeled "unreliable citizens". That limited the school choices, job choices, day care choices and also travel outside of the country among many other things. They could make your life very miserable to keep you in line. I used to live about 12 miles from Austrian border but visited Austria first time in my life with US passport 1991.


The shocks and suspension were made of aluminum alloy, frame was chromium-molybdenum tubing, the engine was aluminum with cast iron cylinder lining, 500 cc OHC separate transmission with wet clutch. He made just about everything except transmission, rims and spokes. There were two almost identical made. One of the engines had experimental engine head without valves. The intake and exhaust were controlled by rotating combustion chamber that had windows for intake and exhaust but it was not working well due issues with lubrication caused by high temperature. It was later replaced by head with valves. I don't remember if there were two or four valves.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

The true "American Dream" translates to "Root, hog, or die." At most, only a quarter of Americans will ever see it.

 

[TomSeller]

My father was smart and ambitious man. Always tinkering with something. His ambition was to make stuff and make world a better place. .

You can be very proud of your father.

 

[Redneck in training]

Lot of people from my family emigrated to USA. First wave reached US shores around 1850-1880. Most settled in southern Minnesota around Wadena where they became successful farmers and in essence dominate the area till today. The second group came during 1st world war. Two brothers of my grandfather were dodging military service in Austrian Hungarian Empire army and one sister tagged along across the Atlantic. As far as I know I am only one coming to USA after the second world war.

 

[Redneck in training]

You can be very proud of your father.

Yes I am proud of him. I just wish he is still alive and come to see me. I am pretty close to buying few CNC machines. My father was expert machinist and designer of "stuff". He would love to see the CNC making "stuff".

 

[ultrarunner]

Must make for great family reunions with "Cousins" all over...

My family roots trace back to Austria on one side and Germany on the other...

Not many of us left on the German side... did look up someone with the same last name on a whim in Germany and we have the same ancestor from the 1700's...

The Austrian side is much different... I probably know more of the family connections than those living there... for them it was simply too many and for me... it was about discovery...

Mom never planned to stay in the States... she came for one year to work/teach in a hospital and met my Dad... and that was that...

It is interesting how tides turn... as in those I host all return back to Europe...

That said... still see those with little to nothing make a go of it here in the Bay Area... drive and determination seems to be key...

 

[CurlyDave]

BE an OWNER.

Through the stock market/mutual funds everyone can be a fractional owner of companies generating 75% of US GDP. Stock investing is another thing to learn, diversified mutual funds are almost no brainers. There is nothing superior to equities OVER THE LONG TERM.



Before I am asked, LONG TERM is twenty years.

Jeff:

I think you are right. Despite the existence of a few counterexamples, the stock market is one of the keys to building wealth. When I was young, I did not save because I foolishly believed that it was impossible to save enough to ever make a difference. In my early 40s I started reading about retirement planning on this new thing called the internet. I slowly realized that it was possible to save a substantial amount of money -- the trick is that get-rich-quick ideas very, very rarely work. OTOH it is well within the capability of the average man to get rich slowly.

I started saving about 8% of my salary, and every time I got a raise I increased the savings percent by half of the raise. In a few years socking away 14 or 15% of my income was painless. I invested in stocks and rental property. Put a lot of sweat equity into the rental properties. While other people were taking vacations, we were landscaping, painting and putting new roofs on. 28 years later DW and I are doing alright.

As far as I am concerned, the advice to become an OWNER is spot on.

Working for someone else, I am at their mercy, and I must take what they want to pay me. I "retired" from the corporate world and now spend my time managing our rentals and improving our land. The American dream is not dead. It just takes work.

 

[coobie]

Just be glad you aren't down here in South Bend.... :laughing:

Home of the fighting Irish.Been there quite a few times.We live about 1.0 hours from the Indiana state line.We visit there frequently..

 

[check]

For me, a big thing is vigilence. Don't just let "sh-- happen", make it happen - the way YOU want it to happen. That, and a sense of "can do" optimism has been responsible for most of my success in life. There's nothing more motivating to me then to have someone tell me that something is impossible.