0
1

[–] TheBuddha 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

If you want a brief word of advice, productive land ownership is a very, very good idea. My land makes me money - more money than I spend. I have 400 acres of blueberries that are a commercially harvested wild crop. Each acre yields about 5000 pounds of berries and we harvest 200 acres per year. About 25% of that crop is certified organic. On top of that, I have a company that does TSI on my main lot. They harvest trees for logs, pulp, and turning. They pay me a set amount per cord and that's all I have to do.

For a while, I owned 276 Fairbanks Road, Farmington, ME. (Apartment complex. You can see it on Google Maps and see it's now under new ownership.) That was a bit of effort, so I sold it. I prefer to be able to be completely hands-off and the property management company was constantly fucking over my tenets and I'm not about fucking people over and ending up in court for actions I didn't perform. The second management company was just inept. Managing it myself was eating too much time. So, I sold it.

Take from that what you will - I'm just sharing my experiences with you.

I have a house in Florida. It's on the good side of the inlet, in Panama City Beach. Go across from Panama City (on 98) and hang the left that takes you beside the Publix. Go down two lights, then take your next left. It's out past the golf course and not too far from the State Park.

Actually, those people you mentioned were just figureheads - but they had huge numbers of people backing them. If you check the post count at the VoatStatistics sub, we're pretty tiny. My little weekly guitar thread got the most comments, out of any thread made last week. It was under 300 comments and had maybe a dozen people in it.

So, like you, my spider senses tingle when I see this sort of poster.

As for my politics, I'm -4 and -2, on that same scale. I'm very much about a strong social safety net (it's cheaper than prison) and education. I'm also really strong about personal liberties while protecting the commons. To me, the greatest way to enjoy our liberties is to be able to afford them and to know how to use them. So, I end up there.

For this discussion, there's a difference between liberty and freedom. I like to describe it as thus:

You're free to kill me, but not at liberty to do so. If I try to harm you, you have the right to kill me in self-defense.

[–] [deleted] 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

[Deleted]

0
1

[–] TheBuddha 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Even if you open your own business, you're still working for someone else - namely your clients. But, it enables you to keep more of the profits and have more control over the business decisions.

There's all sorts of business opportunities out there. I co-own (silently, more or less) a few franchise locations with a local friend. Those are cheap to get into and make a good enough profit to live off - assuming you can get a good location.

If you're into tech, consulting is huge. Consultants make a ton of money, and have since back when I still owned my traffic modeling business. Some of them command four figures per day - and they're independent. If you're any good, that's always an option.

The other major thing I see is filling niches locally. I think more and more business opportunities are actually going to be local instead of international conglomerates. I see this locally (I'm on the local business board/chamber of commerce) with lots of small businesses making their way. In little Farmington, Maine (the closest "city" to me - about 10,000 people I think) there's a new company that's expanding and they just opened like a year ago. They make gi - uniforms for martial artists. They started with a $10,000 loan and a local distribution plan.

So, it's out there - you just need to grab it and have some good luck and dedication to working hard.