
Golden Rules for Making Money (1880) - ptio
https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/
======
ezequiel-garzon
SNL made a wonderful infomercial in 2006 about point 3: avoid debt. Depending
on your location you should be able to watch it in [1] or [2]. During my years
in the US it always puzzled me that, upon reaching my credit limit, it would
not just increase without any interaction, but sometimes double! American
"plastic", as hailed in "The Graduate", was a significant lesson for me.

[1] [http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/dont-buy-
stuff/...](http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/dont-buy-stuff/n12020)

[2]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3ZJKN_5M44](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3ZJKN_5M44)

~~~
tuttifrutti
I was always puzzled how people in the US are quick to spend on credit, and
not worry too much...

~~~
fit2rule
One of the great western habits I inherited after living in the US for 15
years, is the use of the credit card for everything, and then just paying a
single bill (the credit card) every month. If you do it properly, it can
really increase the quality of your life - rewards, points, etc. - and it can
also be very, very dangerous for the undisciplined and income-averse ..

~~~
mclovinit
For those I know, including myself and my partner, the habit to strive for is
spending less, and I agree that credit can be a useful tool if used wisely,
but never really know when life can throw a curve ball. For now, we use credit
cards, but manage to eliminate our debt by paying everything soon after
incurring debt. Call it using debt for leverage I suppose. For any big
purchase (which is rare), we aim to use credit when no interest penalties are
present and pay off before any are incurred. A small house, inexpensive
vehicles, and thrifty habits even with the use of credit cards allowed us to
save quite a bit in contrast to those heavily in debt with terrible credit,
but it is still a gamble. I don't blame others for having debt. There are many
reasons for this. Without any major life events this system works for
us...until perhaps it doesn't.

~~~
fit2rule
The #1 rule is, stay cash-positive: don't spend more than you've got in the
bank to cover the bills, but be willing to defer the payment and continue
income in the interim, because .. after all .. nothing feels better than
having all bills paid and still having a net positive every month, to save
away ..

------
WavingThe44
From Frenzied Finance (1905):

 _First, there is a fundamental law, from which no one—neither the great nor
the small—is exempt. In substance it is: "Every 'Standard Oil' man must wear
the 'Standard Oil' collar."

This collar is riveted on to each one as he is taken into "the band," and can
only be removed with the head of the wearer.

Here is the code. The penalty for infringing the following rules is instant
"removal."

1\. Keep your mouth closed, as silence is gold, and gold is what we exist for.

2\. Collect our debts to-day. Pay the other fellow's debts to-morrow. To-day
is always here, to-morrow may never come.

3\. Conduct all our business so that the buyer and the seller must come to us.
Keep the seller waiting; the longer he waits the less he'll take. Hurry the
buyer, as his money brings us interest.

4\. Make all profitable bargains in the name of "Standard Oil," chancy ones in
the names of dummies. "Standard Oil" never goes back on a bargain.[9]

5\. Never put "Standard Oil" trades in writing, as your memory and the other
fellow's forgetfulness will always be re-enforced with our organization. Never
forget our Legal Department is paid by the year, and our land is full of
courts and judges.

6\. As competition is the life of trade—our trade, and monopoly the death of
trade—our competitor's trade, employ both judiciously.

7\. Never enter into a "butting" contest with the Government. Our Government
is by the people and for the people, and we are the people, and those people
who are not us can be hired by us.

8\. Always do "right." Right makes might, might makes dollars, dollars make
right, and we have the dollars._

~~~
77pt77
> 5\. Never put "Standard Oil" trades in writing

This is good advice?

~~~
arethuza
If you are Standard Oil and are vastly larger than whoever it you are trading
with, have a huge legal team and no doubt some friendly judges handy.

Mind you - I have worked with very senior people who would avoid putting
things in writing and then a few months later always have a notably different
account of conversations than I did. At first I thought I was actually
forgetting things until I realised it's a trick used by overly political
types.

~~~
meric
The one time I forgot to tell my boss to put that bonus he said he will offer
me, in writing, I never got it. Ugh.

------
ape4
You can tell its from 1880 because of the basic html.

~~~
kristopolous
The ASCII version is even in a zip for the benefit of our 19th century
brethren with their slow telegraph dialup connections.

~~~
cubano
I'm waiting for Morse code API myself.

~~~
ISL
Somewhere, someone has a ham radio listening for Morse code on a specific
frequency. The right Morse code will probably make some equipment do
something.

The trick is just figuring out who, what, where, and on which band....

------
Mahn
It's interesting how flat human nature stays over time, how advice given 136
years ago is still perfectly applicable today. Over the course of centuries
life has changed dramatically, but we still think, worry, feel and act like
our ancestors did from a millennium ago. I'd bet you could easily find advice
given in the roman empire times that would still be relevant today.

~~~
jameslk
I've thought about this a lot on a philosophical level. A person goes through
life repeating the same mistakes their parents made and their grandparents
made before them, and so on. We spend so much time re-learning things that
have already been learned. And doing things that have already been done.
Imagine how life could be different if we didn't have to start over each time.

~~~
BWStearns
I listened to a talk on counterinsurgency given by David Kilcullen (I am about
90% sure, it could have been Nagl), but he asked the audience about whether it
was better to learn from experience or from academics. The audience was about
evenly split but with a lot of abstainers, and he said academia was the better
choice of course, because no on ever died from reading a book.

While "teachable moments" in most contexts aren't fatal, the overall point
that it's better to learn from other people's mistakes remains the same.

~~~
flyinglizard
It's a completely different matter between learning from theory and learning
in practice. What's sorely missing from theoretical teaching is context -
knowing when and how to apply this knowledge - and the actual experience of
using it, which is critical to remembering what was taught.

From my experience on this planet, purely theoretical teachings tend to be
forgotten in favor of things you've actually used and done.

~~~
BWStearns
This logic always sounds good but I have a hard time really placing times when
even in retrospect I lacked some wisdom from doing in order to apply the
theory.

I've had plenty of times where I lacked both the theory and the scraped elbows
(creating shared state clusterfucks that seemed clever at the time), and times
when I was missing the theory alone (mechanically reaching for the OO hammer
because there was a nail-shaped screw in front of me).

In all programming instances I can think of where I had the theory but not the
experience I knew that there was a lot I didn't know and read about the
implementation issues and went and bothered smarter people about it. Of course
I wr[i|o]te plenty of shitty code in various contexts. I guess we can say
that's the experience happening, but that's a bit unsatisfying as a model.

With the theoretical learning you get measurably better: if you've literally
never even heard of time complexity, or read the latency numbers everyone
should know, you're more likely to write some code with some garbage
performance. Once you know about it you're unlikely to write grossly nested
loops making unnecessary un-batched requests to servers 12 timezones away, or
if you do you'll at least feel gross about it and it will be a (bad) choice
not a mistake.

With experience with a particular technology you do as well. Knowing the
Widget API inside out and knowing which Widget calls are lazy vs eager and
which get cached or whatever are going to improve your code and get it written
faster, but the gains are much more marginal than the theoretical knowledge.
With enough practice learning new APIs gets easier. Remembering arbitrary
incantations is something everyone eventually gets fairly good at. I think
most of HN would do very well at Hogwarts. Assuming you already know how to
program, I bet just reading something like Clean Code is likely to improve
your JS quality more than an equivalent time spent churning out new JS (even
though the example language in CC isn't JS so any benefit would be ported
through theory).

It's very cheap to implement theoretical concepts in practice and I think a
lot of dismissiveness towards "theoretical" things are defensive insecurities
and/or lazy, probably at the same rate that "premature optimization" is
utilized in such causes. Software has a very narrow gulf between practical and
theoretical.

In domains where experience and theory are farther apart I propose that it's
not so much experience being better than theoretical knowledge, rather the
theoretical knowledge is frequently just plain wrong or extended beyond its
applicability.

Look at the FBI's terrible high-school surveillance program that was linked
here recently. It's based off of really garbage pseudo-science concerning
extremist radicalization. There is better, more modern research on the
subject, which should be used instead, but even then caution should prevail
and less theoretical and more informed logic and experienced based decisions
might ultimately be wiser. In a healthy field of study and practice, as time
goes on and more data gets accumulated theory increasingly approaches reality.

~~~
tremguy
I think what flyinglizard had in mind were fields where learning occurs
through theory first and foremost, and only secondarily through practice.
Software obviously is a craft where the act of implementing is really the
major part, and thus you are by default learning through practice with
theoretical studying being the exception.

Now consider the math courses you take at college for example. Here the
important part is to learn and understand deeply abstract concepts, but then
you explicitly need to practice in order to tie them together so you are
actually able to use this knowledge.

I think both aspects of assimilating knowledge are absolutely crucial in all
domains, but often one of them is naturally the default, while the other
requires some effort.

------
clishem
The author of 'So Good They Can't Ignore you'
([http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13525945-so-good-they-
can...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13525945-so-good-they-can-t-ignore-
you)) basically argues that the first rule he mentions ("Don't mistake your
vocation") is a false myth:

"In this eye-opening account, Cal Newport debunks the long-held belief that
"follow your passion" is good advice. Not only is the cliché flawed-
preexisting passions are rare and have little to do with how most people end
up loving their work-but it can also be dangerous, leading to anxiety and
chronic job hopping."

~~~
kjksf
"Don't mistake your vocation" doesn't mean "follow your passion".

Paraphrasing, it means "do what you you're naturally good at"

"Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best
suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed".

~~~
Retra
You'll still end up moving around until you find out what you're great at.
Unless by some freak accident you know from the start. For instance, there's
_something_ that I'm probably a world-class genius at - I have enough
experience being me to suspect that - but I have a very hard time putting it
into words what I do, and an even harder time trying to monetize it.

~~~
Joeri
If you're not naturally good at any particular thing, then just doing
something enjoyable is a good second. Perseverance is the key to success, and
it cannot exist without passion.

------
joslin01
Wonderful writing.

> The inordinate love of money, no doubt, may be and is "the root of all
> evil," but money itself, when properly used, is not only a "handy thing to
> have in the house," but affords the gratification of blessing our race by
> enabling its possessor to enlarge the scope of human happiness and human
> influence. The desire for wealth is nearly universal, and none can say it is
> not laudable, provided the possessor of it accepts its responsibilities, and
> uses it as a friend to humanity.

> So in regard to wealth. Go on in confidence, study the rules, and above all
> things, study human nature; for "the proper study of mankind is man," and
> you will find that while expanding the intellect and the muscles, your
> enlarged experience will enable you every day to accumulate more and more
> principal, which will increase itself by interest and otherwise, until you
> arrive at a state of independence.

> When a man's undivided attention is centered on one object, his mind will
> constantly be suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him if
> his brain was occupied by a dozen different subjects at once. Many a fortune
> has slipped through a man's fingers because he was engaged in too many
> occupations at a time.

------
lr4444lr
I love this part:

 _The poor spendthrift vagabond says to a rich man:

"I have discovered there is enough money in the world for all of us, if it was
equally divided; this must be done, and we shall all be happy together."

"But," was the response, "if everybody was like you, it would be spent in two
months, and what would you do then?"

"Oh! divide again; keep dividing, of course!"_

~~~
carlosnunez
Don't show that to the Universal Basic Income diehards...

~~~
mc808
UBI just lifts the wealth distribution curve up a bit so the long tail
approaches something above zero. You could also call it a "tax prebate" as in
the FairTax proposal if that's more palatable. The poorest poor are going to
get their basic necessities somehow, whether it's by participating in the
economy or by digging through your garbage or your garage.

~~~
danieltillett
Or even worse engaging in activies that degrade your lifestyle ;)

I live in a society that has in effect a basic income (not very efficiently
run, but that is another topic) and it allows the ultra rich and famous to
walk around without fear. I have on more than one occasion met billionaires on
the street who were wandering around without bodyguards or security. Once you
have everything money can buy this is priceless.

------
tmd
A lot of old-school financial advice seems to focus on the importance of
saving and avoidance of debt. It seems reasonable but I always wonder how
applicable that is in the modern times with our record-low interest rates.
Short look at the tables in [1] suggests that, for example, you could gen 5%
after-tax real returns on government bonds in the 19 century. Today, that
would be unthinkable.

[1]
[http://efinance.org.cn/cn/fm/The%20Equity%20Premium%20Stock%...](http://efinance.org.cn/cn/fm/The%20Equity%20Premium%20Stock%20and%20Bond%20Returns%20since%201802.pdf)

~~~
gdubs
Low interest rates make saving and debt avoidance even more important, since
you can't rely as heavily on the market to grow your savings.

~~~
sk5t
On the contrary, near-zero interest rates recommend more debt and more risky
investments, because (a) debt is cheap, and (b) inflation (stagflation
perhaps) will nibble away your savings if you try to ignore the equity
markets.

~~~
gdubs
Ah, I can see how it read that way but I wasn't implying that one shouldn't
_invest_ their savings.

------
archildress
I love reading things from 150 years ago that are more relevant than ever.
Thanks for sharing.

------
11thEarlOfMar
Some things never change. Like common sense.

This is all true, but it was not all obvious until I'd experienced four or
five decades of life lessons. If you think this advice is at all dubious, ask
and we'll see if we can explain...

~~~
rokhayakebe
_Some things never change. Like common sense._

Epic.

------
vlunkr
Our credit card driven culture could certainly use his advice on avoiding
debt.

~~~
iagooar
I took a credit once, for buying a car, and will never do it again.

Although I never had problems with paying the money back, I was paying a lot
more money back to the bank, so when I finished paying the credit off, the car
was worth half of the price I bought it, almost having paid double the price
because of the credit interests.

But the worst part was that it didn't feel right.

So now my policy is to never buy anything with money that I don't have (yet).
It makes you feel so much better, you feel a truly free person. I don't own my
apartment, true, and the money I spend each month on rent could bring me
closer to owning one, but I just don't see the point of it. But buying stuff
for money you actually have makes your decisions so much better and closer to
what you can really afford.

Also, there is another component to buying stuff with money you actually have.
Recently, I decided to buy a scooter. Not a big "deal", but I didn't want to
just spend any savings on it that I have so far, so I put aside money from
some freelancing outside my daily job, sold some unused furniture and
electronics, and only had to pay around 25% of the price of the scooter from
my account. It felt so good, it felt like I deserved it, because I planned for
it in advance and didn't have to "compromise" my savings. On the other hand,
when I took the loan for the car, I felt bad, I almost felt miserable, as if I
was doing something wrong. I can't imagine buying a house for someone else's
money. You must feel like a slave.

~~~
carlosnunez
Here's the biggest reason why I don't mind taking out a loan on a car, one of
the most aggressive and most expensive depreciating assets out there:

Comfort. Immense comfort.

I spend a lot of time in my car. I enjoy the car that I have now (a 2012 Honda
Accord EX-L), but the only reason why I didn't take out a lease on something
more expensive (like a 535i or an E-class) is because we're planning to move
very soon and driving a luxury car in NYC makes no damn sense unless you are
flush with money and can afford the inevitable body work.

When I went to Austin a few months ago, I decided to rent a BMW Z4. It was
amazing. An absolute pleasure to drive. It wasn't the speed that did it in for
me, though. It was the sheer comfort of everything.

Volume knobs? They're RIGHT THERE. You don't even need to move your forearm.

The seats? Plushy and comfortable (unlike my Accord; everything is great, but
those seats are terrible).

Cruise control that actually works on downhills and actually slows down? Not a
problem.

Me paying a few hundred dollars per month to not drive something much cheaper
(and, likely, not as nice/comfortable) doesn't bother me at all. It's a debt,
and debt sucks, but driving a low-grade econobox for a few years while I save
up for something that will be worth 30% less than what I bought it for the
minute I drive it out is much worse (for me).

(Same goes for my future house or apartment.)

That being said, building up my emergency spend and clearing up some debt that
I've amassed is next on my priority list after moving.

~~~
switch007
BMW fan here! (To an extent). BMWs have their flaws (buy a 15+ year old E46, I
dare you), but damn, it feels much more like they thought things through.
Nothing in the interior of my E46 annoyed me. I've driven the F30 as hire cars
many times and love it. However, I drove a 2015 Mercedes E-class for 3 days
last week...:

\- The parking brake is a PEDAL and the release is a totally separate lever.

\- The button to disable auto start-stop is labelled "Eco" rather than a more
standard VW/BMW "A" icon in a circular arrow.

\- The gear selector is a weird stalk (drive is down, reverse is up, and park
is a separate button you push inwards?!).

\- The cruise-control always stayed -1km below what is set.

\- The gearbox mode selection cycle in the order: Eco->Sport->Manual, i.e. in
eco, you need to cycle to get to manual rather than being able to select it
directly. Also, flipping up a gear with the paddle DOESN'T put it in to manual
mode.

\- The cruise control stalk is complicated and had an LED, which is out of
view.

\- No button on steering wheel to directly change radio station.

\- You need to dig the brake pedal to enable the auto-hold.

\- To wash the windscreen, you need to push inwards a small button on a stalk
to the second level! The first level activates the wipers without water. I
dry-wiped the windscreen a few times before realising.

But apart from all that, it was a nice drive.

~~~
jacquesm
> The parking brake is a PEDAL and the release is a totally separate lever.

That has two functions in one go: first of all it stops your potentially
deranged passengers from pulling on the handbrake and second it allows for
_much_ more force to be applied to the pedal than you could ever achieve while
pulling on a lever. This means that if you need the parking brake for it's
backup emergency brake function it will likely have a lot more effect.

> The gear selector is a weird stalk (drive is down, reverse is up, and park
> is a separate button you push inwards?!).

Gear selector is a matter of taste, it's actually the same as it would be in
some other EU cars (and even some ancient ones, the (original) DS for
instance). The reason why park is separate is so when you reverse and you
still have a little bit of speed you don't accidentally lock the wheels.

> Cruise control setting being 1 km below what you set is

Similar to the speedometer erring on the side of caution. In case of doubt,
check with a GPS and adjust accordingly if you really feel like riding that
_fine_ line between a _fine_ and a freebie.

> No button on steering wheel to directly change radio station.

First world problems ;)

> To wash the windscreen, you need to push inwards a small button on a stalk
> to the second level! The first level activates the wipers without water. I
> dry-wiped the windscreen a few times before realising.

RTM :)

~~~
switch007
Some valid points, but I was mostly commenting in the context of it being a
rental and expecting a car to be like other cars.

> ...the same as it would be in some other EU cars

"some" (which, out of interest)?. Not anywhere near being a majority e.g. BMW,
Audi, Ford, VW

> Similar to the speedometer erring on the side of caution.

I can do that. I can set it to 119 instead of 120. Leave me in control (OK,
it's the cruise control feature, but still...)

Again, the parking pedal is unique(?) to Mercedes. Completely different to
expected location and behaviour to most other cars.

~~~
jacquesm
The Citroen DS had both the parking brake _and_ the gear shift in that exact
configuration and this was a very common configuration in the past.

Here is a picture of the gear shift lever:

[https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c3/56/58/c356581ab...](https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c3/56/58/c356581abf70a41367433b04e0c45392.jpg)

That's a half-automatic gear box, so gears but no clutch! (Not bad for the
early 60's, as well as hydraulic suspension, power steering and headlights
that point where you're driving).

I've even seen it on some American cars. Eventually the shifter for automatics
moved to the transmission tunnel (if you had one) as well but it wasn't always
so.

I suspect the re-occurrence of this has to do with the mid console in high end
cars now more and more occupied with electronics and infotainment rather than
the drive train and associated levers.

------
farooo123
Didn't the author of this come up with "There is a sucker born every minute"
quote

~~~
pjscott
That's almost certainly a misattribution:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_minute)

------
zoom6628
Brilliant, witty and on-the-nail correct. Wish i had read this 30+ years ago.

Required reading for those considering a startup or a career.

------
huuu
I always like the book The Incredible Secret Money Machine very much.

The first rule for making money: never do it for the money.

A free download is available:
[http://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf](http://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf)

------
egypturnash
Twenty chapters of true wisdom, from that great American showman P. T. Barnum.
Especially the penultimate chapter, "Don't Blab":

> Some men have a foolish habit of telling their business secrets. If they
> make money they like to tell their neighbors how it was done. Nothing is
> gained by this, and ofttimes much is lost.

Nicely done, Mr. Barnum. I am honored to share a birthday with you.

------
gnarbarian
Here's my favorite bit:

I was recently reading in a London paper an account of a like philosophic
pauper who was kicked out of a cheap boarding-house because he could not pay
his bill, but he had a roll of papers sticking out of his coat pocket, which,
upon examination, proved to be his plan for paying off the national debt of
England without the aid of a penny.

------
atmosx
I've read only the first chapter yet, but will read the rest because it got
me.

However there's a hidden idea which equals _wealth_ to _happiness_ which I
dislike heavily. That said we can rest assured that while wealth is not
connected to happiness (too many things into play to achieve that state), debt
sure as hell leads to miserable.

------
rabidrat
This is actually pretty brilliant.

------
amelius
Not sure if these are necessary or sufficient conditions.

Probably neither.

------
oliv__
Thank you for posting this. It is profoundly helpful.

------
andrewchambers
Can someone recommend other books like this please?

~~~
cybertronic
"How To Get Rich" by Felix Dennis

~~~
vldx
I can second this - straight to the point book written by someone who had
already amassed his wealth.

Also worth mentioning is "The Millionaire Fastlane" \- the title is sleazy,
but it had big impact on my mindset when I've read it.

------
iamgopal
Wow plentY of time that writers and readers had. I wish those days to come
again.

------
dschiptsov
Some of these advices are in harmony with thousands old maxim "fortune favours
the prepared", which not only hints that so-called success is much more a
result of chance, like almost everything else in the universe, but also
correlate with the notions of avoiding a debt, concentration and persistence.
But the chance is still the major factor.

BTW, the parts of the Patanjali Yoga Sutra, which gives practical advice about
the practice - about necessity of an appropriate _isolated_ place, diet,
habits with emphasis on sleep cycle, proper state of mind, concentration and
persistence - is the best universal advice to achieve anything in life that I
am aware of. The word Yoga could be translated as "discipline", and has little
to do with asanas, mats, and yoga pants.

------
bbcbasic
You are given the TL;DR then the fleshed out story after, which is of a
manageable size. The English style is very readable for something so old.
There was presumably no word-count pressure.

I loathe books like How to Win Friends and Influence People that have some
meandering and boring story before it gets to the point.

This is the 'how to start a startup' for business of the regular type, i.e. no
ambition to get loads of capital and become the next Google. Read this once
the tech bubble has burst!

------
znpy
Very interesting.

------
increment_i
PT Barnum - the pg of the 19th century

------
cosmolev
21\. THERE ARE NO RULES

