How To Go Broke
Essay Preview: How To Go Broke
Report this essay
Going broke is a very tedious and cumbersome activity, which requires constant vigilance and tireless effort. Although many have accomplished this feat on their own, many of us require some form of guidance. This serves as the quintessential handbook of how to get broke; it shall be called The House of Cards Insolvency Process Guide. To begin, it is critical to limit the term broke as financially bankrupt. Although at times broke can refer to moral emptiness or may even be used to describe both pecuniary and personal ruin, we limit our definition strictly to fiscal failure.
Before we delve into the step by step guidelines on achieving one’s bankruptcy, certain foundations are suggested to be laid out in order to facilitate the process. The presence of these enhancers produces better and faster results 85% of the time. Overindulgent and over-dependent family members are essential in producing fiscal degradation due to their unmatched capacity to raise costs — unnecessary costs in particular. Credit cards are recommended as the payment mode of choice for all transactions down to purchasing a bottle of water. Visa credit cards are advised, due to the many travel-points one can earn from frequent use. You can get a free trip to Anywhere-But-Here as soon as your bank account reaches $ -1.00. Visa also gives you the benefit of choosing what Font and Font Size your Bankruptcy Letter will be written in. Third, a rich social circle will also aid in the quest to flush funds down the toilet. A politician’s kin or royalty is preferred, however due to the limited supply, nouveau riches or any upper class family will do. It is essential for one’s inner circle to be composed of at least four members in order to have sufficient peer pressure during any social situation. Also, these friends are advised to be the kind of little moral fiber to assure that the group operates with a more varied and diverse list of activity choices. In cases where the above mentioned factors are hard to come by, a girlfriend/fiancĩe (never use a wife) can produce almost the same results as the three factors mentioned above. To get better results, combine the credit card factor with the girlfriend factor. Adding a mistress to the equation enhances the foundation laid out by the key aspects enumerated above. (Caution: adding a small amount of egotism is acceptable but may vary in results. Ego in excess however is dangerous.)
The first step is fairly the easiest: Savings Slippage. To begin the long dreary road to poverty, the initial stages depend on subtle miscalculations, careless misappropriations of funds. Leaving lights the television open to increase electricity bills, driving to a nearby McDonald’s instead of walking to raise gas consumption, and even upsizing that overly expensive fruit shake all contribute in their own small way in setting the wheels of misfortune into motion. Such flawed judgments and hasty purchasing decisions help in slowly starting the snowball that is financial laxness and irresponsibility. Remember to always keep being inconsiderate in one’s procurement processes.
Second comes the slightly more conscious and dedicated action of placing a much larger portion of one’s wealth into risky and unstable waters. Sound Investments requires one to invest a significant amount of money into assets/equity that have greater risk and greater returns. Although this seems counterintuitive since one can potentially reap larger benefits, this wealth gaining occurs only in the short-run. The long-run effect of such a chancy financial management strategy can be nothing else but losses. Key to this secondary process is the quantity — a respectable amount needs to be deposited into the investment in order to save face amongst one’s social clique, as well as the quality: equally essential to apportioning large sums to this activity is the blind arrogance one uses to choose the investment type. Almost as important to the blatantly excessive investment value is the pretense of knowledge of the correct types of investments to enter. As the process’ title “Sound Investment” implies, a certain faking is required. One must pretend to know the broad and yet differentiated world of banking and equity portfolios without bothering to actually learn about them. Use words such as вЂ?instability’, вЂ?hedging’, and вЂ?derivatives’ to inspire awe and trust among those who discuss these activities with you. Of utmost importance to Step Two, one must invest in only certain types of products to assure that one’s portfolio remains inflexible and susceptible to crashing.
Next comes the more advanced form of unwise asset management: putting up businesses. In the Sound Business stage, the thoughtless and unabashed purchasing habits initiated in Step One shall be the basis. At this point, the financially carefree person should have festered into a near-irrational spender. Combined with the presumed delusions of grandeur instilled within every money dependent being, one’s illogical fund management should produce poorly thought through and totally unreasoned out business plans. Logic and better judgment that should dawn on a person after a few days of the first occurrence of the insane business idea should be shelved for other situations. Ideas like creating exotic pet shops selling poisonous snails and scorpions, making edible condoms, and putting up a sperm bank should be seen as profitable and nothing short of genius market differentiation. It is advised to fund the aforementioned businesses via bank loans for higher interest rates, but if banks do not see the potential in such entrepreneurial endeavors, then using one’s own cash is the next best option. Loan sharks are also suggested.
After some time, the irrational money spending should blow up into full-blown habit. Upon reaching this comfort level, the next step can be undertaken. This process is two-pronged: Value Added Task (VAT) and Consumerism. The former entails longer-term financial commitments. Buy land, construct a lavish home with a pool, a sports complex, and a mini-theater with surround sound — all of which warrant constant maintenance and repair. In coordination with the girlfriend/fiancĩe factor