$ff0|1-Money and Money Making. |1-By |1-SparHawk. $fff The world revolves around money and like most people I have an interest in it. To get rich is high in everyone's priorities, but how do you go about it? Sadly it is an unfair world and in situations where the top few % earn more than the rest put together something is wrong, but it does give us something to aspire to. What is the definition of 'rich'? Is it having enough money to live off comfortably? Enough to do whatever you've wanted, buy whatever you've wanted? Enough to do all this and give pleasure and help to others? If you had enough to do everything what could you want? Wouldn't life be empty if you had nothing to look forward to? The answer is NO! you can never have enough money, and there is no shortage of things to do with it. All moral implications aside we would all love to be stinking rich, on par with people like The Sultan of Brunei, George Soros, Richard Branson and the Gettys, Rockerfellers and Rothschilds of this world. Money = Power = Influence = Fame. Well that's easily said, but how would you go about it? It has been written that 'You'd never get rich working for someone else' and this is probably true, so what's left? Why, these! $fa01: Win the money. $fff You would instantly think of the Lottery under this title. Our national lottery has already created a lot of instant millionaires for only a £1 outlay, but the odds of winning are still massively out of reach. A new lottery launched by the bookmakers (over £400 for three numbers betting on the Irish Lottery) gives better odds. Other ways of winning via gambling is the old favourite of betting on the football pools, betting on horses/greyhounds or betting on anything really. It would take years to get money this way though, most bookmakers have top bet limits and payout limits. The best chance of a very large win would be on some kind of accumulator where the winnings from one bet go to fund the next. You could go to Las Vegas, Monte Carlo or similar and get lucky in the casinos. You could get insider information on winners before they win. You could buy some sure fire method, perfect it, and win all the time (this has been done in poker, blackjack etc.). There are professional gamblers and they do consistently win. You could too. $fa02: Steal, scam or defraud... $fff By far the riskiest but with perhaps the largest yield. I would never recommend it, but it is a method and should be listed. Of course, any ideas here are criminal and could land you in prison, but I seriously doubt anyone would try them and if you do, don't get caught! Stealing money can be carefully planned and executed , or simply taken by walking into a bank (not recommended), petrol station or a corner shop with the necessary incentive (i.e. a firearm) for the cashier/attendant to pay. A disguise, untraceable vehicle and a flair for the situation would be needed. A simpler method would be get the cash from the securicor me before they put it in the van. Other methods of profitable criminal activity would include house or business burglary, asset burglary (stealing antiques, paintings etc.) and some sort of hostage situation, blackmail or terrorism. All could be worth a great deal of money. And don't forget the computer equivalents, i.e. infiltrating some multi-nationals system and holding it to ransom! There are the small crimes such as credit card fraud, false bank accounts (with loans...) or smuggling (drugs, guns) laundering (the money kind), and insurance fraud. Defrauding companies and getting away with scams is more of a 'gentleman's' kind of criminal activity. It is also more profitable than the above methods. You could set up bogus companies and reap the rewards. You could borrow a lot of a cash and run off with it, changing your identity before or after borrowing it. You could even run companies that do not exist but still get the money. Set up a company, take out a business loan, go bankrupt with all the money 'offshore', easily done. Buy property, mortgage and re-mortgage it using the money to buy more and remortgage them too. Before you're caught you'll have a lot of money... Read the newspapers for inspiration. $fa03: Earn the money, your own way. $fff Or go into business for yourself. Home business is the growth area of the nineties, but most go bankrupt. There are lots to try, read exchange and mart or similar for some ideas. The easiest business's to set up are the 'buying and selling' kind. Service industries, unless its in computing, usually require some form of expertise but there seems to be a growth in 'home' travel agents. There are scams to avoid but most are bona fide opportunities that need a little work to get running. You can set up a company with a company formation service for £40-£80 pounds. You can register for VAT, open an business bank account, borrow money (if possible) on a Ltd. company (so you are not liable for bankruptcy, if your business fails) and register for the thousands of grants, regional aid and European money available. As for what to go into business with, that's anyone's guess. Used car dealership? Trade warehouse? Selling auctioned goods on? A travel agency? Recruitment agency? Retail trade? Mobile food vans? Cleaning company? Repair company? PD Library? Computer sales (build and sell PC's)? I can't be bothered to type more, but there are thousands... Get Exchange & Mart and look in the business section in that. $fa04: Invest. $fff By this I mean the stock market. You're not going to make much money in savings accounts, building society accounts, tessa's, pep's and the rest even though they can give good interest rates. By INVEST I mean trading your money directly. There are loads of markets to trade in, the ordinary shares of business around the world, the foreign exchange market where you trade in money, the futures, commodities markets... and lots of opportunities to make cash. The process is simple enough. Try, by various means, to find a good, growing company whose share price you think will rise. Buy the Financial Times or similar regularly to find how. Register with a stockbrokers or similar (you can even buy shares by post or in the shareshop services in many banks). Buy the shares. Watch them grow. Sell them. Buy more. It's not quite as simple as that and you do need capital to begin with, even though you can start small and build up. If you get lucky you can find your money doubling on one deal, but its more usual to have a portfolio for many shares to spread the risk. There are lots of books on this subject, but some are heavy reading so find a basic one that outlines the facts. Even though the adverts, newspapers etc always carry the line 'Remember, the value of shares may fall as well as rise' if you stick to safe companies you are more likely stay safe as well. The safest of all is to buy government shares on the next privatisation (the post office seems a good candidate). If however you buy riskier shares on a new company it may boom and return your money many times over. One of the hardest aspects of this type of dealing is knowing when to buy and when to sell. Other markets work the same way. Foreign Exchange, or Forex markets you can buy for example Dollars for your pounds. The exchange rate is about 1.5% so you'd get 150 dollars for 100 pounds. Wait until it goes to about 2% the other way, sell your dollars for pounds once more and you now have £300... this is a very unlikely situation but it does illustrate the process. Futures markets mean you buy contracts on commodities such as sugar, the infamous pork bellies etc and sell these contracts at a later date in the same fashion. If none if that suits you then carry on working/claiming for it. You may not get stinkingly rich but you can be comfortable. As for spending all that lovely dough, well, do anything you want! Just remember if you do get rich who gave you the incentive, OK? All donations kindly received ... $0ff|1- End.