My Fellow Compassionate Capitalists:
Oh to be young again. To be naïve enough to believe that things last forever. To be so inexperienced that everything is for the very first time. To feel that the adults in charge actually know what they’re doing and that your responsibility is to simply learn and make the seamless transition into the future.
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED??
Such thoughts occur at watershed moments in your life. One of mine is occurring now in a mobile home park I have that has been a goose that laid the golden egg.
For clarification purposes I know that many people hear the word mobile home park and think in terms of “trailer trash“, cars up on blocks, an episode of the television series Cops, dirty laundry hanging on a clothesline, and welfare checks. While this may have been an accurate description when I first took the park over 20 years ago…..for the past 10 years it’s made over a 1000% return ANNUALLY!!!!
When I first took over the park 20 years ago it was strictly as the role of a manager. It would be almost a decade later before I became the owner. I took the job because I was in construction and I was working too hard for too many hours with no benefits except for the ability to quickly get another construction job after inevitably being fired in this right to work state. Being a manager represented “security”and I could go a whole year or maybe even longer without getting fired and not have the fear of my home being repossessed. I was also able to wake up when I was rested. Go to bed when I was tired. And I actually got paid one weeks vacation. I had hit the mother load!!!
It felt great to wake up with purpose and passion every day. The park was in such disrepair that I never ran out of things to do. I felt that it was my 5 acres of this earth that God had entrusted me with; and it felt good to be “free” to receive the fruits of my own labor and to take a chance on breathing and stopping long enough to enjoy life and think about my American dream.
All of this work in a single project though would have me wake up from repetitive nightmares of a utility Armageddon. I dreamt I would find old abandoned buildings that could be repurposed as storage sheds or buildings for my shop tools that would keep getting stolen. I would dream that sewer lines were overflowing while at the same time several water mains broke flooding the park with several acre-feet of water. Of course electric panels would explode and be on fire and all of the tenants would be threatening to leave if I did not repair everything instantly. In my dreams when I would repair the issues other issues would instantly pop up. I could never complete a project but I was happy to do it.
To be happy in a war zone… That sounds weird doesn’t it!!?? I’m hoping everyone is following all of theses metaphors of what’s going on in our country and in the world today.
In order to make a long story short and not give away too many details……we have come to a point to where I need to put the last section of the park on city sewer as the septic tank and dry well has been rendered useless. If not remedied this will be a death sentence to the park.
Fortunately this is not my first rodeo. As I have started this process I am surprised how alive and rejuvenated getting back to hard manual labor with the aid of machines like Bobcats got me. I had become soft in my affluent, baby back, white collared, Scottsdale world. I had temporarily forgotten the joy of the dream, the struggle, the victory. The dream, the struggle, the victory that the vast majority of Americans feel on a daily basis. While many wish to instantly have the lifestyle of the 1% ….. most do not realize the joy of being part of the making of America. The honor as well as the necessity of being the backbone of this great nation.
And so we have come to a point of ending this newsletter with a message of hope and a call for action. To the backbone of America we hear your cries for help when it comes to the housing crisis. We know that it is not your fault. If you knew how to correct it you would’ve done something about it and corrected it by now.
To the 1% as well as others who have been blessed with a good financial education… It is our duty to invest in the infrastructure of the American spirit. Many of us have become soft and were ill prepared when Covid came and for a while….. took away from many the only source of economic mobility most Americans have… their jobs. While job openings are plentiful right now, many have found themselves behind on mortgages and priced out of their own neighborhoods. This is a lethal problem to have.
So to everyone out there with the season of hope and gratitude upon us… I urge you to make possible the capital for America’s general maintenance. To cast away the shadows of fear and shine the light of hope and profitability on capitalism. To show the world exactly why we are the greatest nation in history. To become a beacon once again. To become sentinels and vanguards of our nations transformative ability to “NEVER awake from the American Dream “.
