Aaron Clarey Quotes

“Because of the Darwinistic programming you have, many men will approach life from the angle of attaining financial security first, and then relaxing and enjoying life.

You will get everything in order, get your degree, get your career, pay off your debts, pay off your house, and then, once financially stable, finally permit yourself to enjoy life.

There is just one minor problem with that approach: Life doesn’t work that way.”

“How much money or other people’s time do you need? Do you want to slave away for all 79 years of your life expectancy? Work up millions of dollars worth in time and then die, never getting to spend it or enjoy it?

Or do you want to have a little fun in life? Go travelling, eating good food, driving fast cars, and imbibing in quality booze?

Life is not about slaving away and working all the time. It is about enjoying life and living it. But you cannot just have fun all the time, just as you cannot work all the time. There has to be a balance.

This is what economists call the 'leisure labor trade off'. Every hour you work is one less hour you can spend on leisure or enjoying yourself. And every hour you spend on leisure is one less hour you can spend on labor.

There is no right or wrong balance as it is up to the individual tastes and desires of each person, but if there is an observation I have had in my two decades of economic experience it’s that humans tend to overvalue labor and undervalue leisure.”

“In short, if you can realize that it is humans that are the most important thing in life and not material items, you will spend (at least) 60% less money on said material items, meaning you need to work 60% less in life.”

“It is a common mistake to assume that middle aged man driving that $70,000 luxury car living in that $3 million McMansion is 'rich'.

The truth is most people who drive $70,000 luxury cars and live in $3 million McMansions are poor. Yes, they own a $70,000 car and a $3 million house, but they have a $70,000 car loan and a $3.5 million mortgage.

In other words, they owe more than they own resulting in a negative 'net worth' of $ 500,000.”

“The larger point is that as society and the economy go through this shift there will not only be less economic opportunity to fulfill your role as 'father, protector, provider, and bread winner', there will be less appreciation for such roles.

Therefore, to make sure you have purpose and agency in life, you need to find hobbies and interests that are not dependent on economic circumstances and cannot be supplanted by government intervention.”

“The tell tale sign of a worthless degree is when the only or primary application of the study is to merely re-teach the same stuff to new and future students.”

“You can expect to pay roughly a 40% tax over the course of your life. 40% of your working life will be spent working up the money to pay taxes!

Normally you would expect that 40% to go to government programs that benefit you (defense, roads, police, etc.), however, in reality 70% of that money goes to other people (in the form of welfare, food stamps, WIC, health care, etc.).

Mathematically translated this means out of a 50 year career, 14 of those years are literally you being a slave to other people.”