Have we largely become a Huckster Economy?

[JD Martin]

I have been thinking about this for a while, and I was listening to a podcast tonight while I was in the shower and it just kind of brought it around to this thread. 

Today, it seems to me, at least in the US, there is a greater proportion of "huckster-ism" in our economy and in the ambitions of the population than in any time that I can remember (I'm half a decade from 60) in my life. I see and hear signs of this everywhere I look, and I like to think it's not just because I'm looking for it.

I'm no pollyanna. I know in any economic system, especially a capitalistic one, there will always be some proportion of people & businesses that don't deal or create anything of any real value. But today I see more of this than I can ever remember in the past, and I see it everywhere. Multitudes of people on BP looking to become rich on real estate by "wholesaling" or "rental arbitrage", essentially folks with no money or assets looking to punch their golden ticket. Dubious, or no value, real estate training courses, books, seminars, etc by people who often have less experience than the people they're "teaching". Syndications that hawk unreasonable returns and unbelievable risks while raking in chunks of fees for the syndicators, sometimes people who have almost no experience or knowledge in the products they're selling. 

And that's just what I see on BP. I see it everywhere. I have a grandson who aspires to make his fortune as an "influencer". Making money by getting people to follow his channel, where the only real monetization is due to the fact that legitimate businesses are willing to pay advertising money to place ads where eyeballs will see them. A lot of his friends think that getting a "real job" or creating a "real business" is for chumps. Why would you want to work a real job and save your money when you can do stupid stuff on Youtube, hawk junk products and try to get free AirBnb stays? 

Today it seems to me that everyone wants to make their money by being some kind of middleman, syphoning money off the interface. When I tell people about the hard work and long hours it took to rehab all the houses in our portfolio, they look at me like I have 3 heads. We created value by rehabilitating dilapidated housing and renting it out to people in need of quality homes to rent at reasonable prices. It wasn't rocket science. When I was a kid people created businesses by purchasing property and building homes, or renting out space and creating a nice restaurant, things like that. Hucksterism was Amway and Tupperware parties, but everyone knew it. Bringing this back to the podcast, the entire thing consisted of a guest telling people to figure out ways to sell repackaged information to people and generate advertising dollars, which the podcast itself was generating by appealing to people's get rich quick bias. 

I'm no Luudite, and I know there's still plenty of things of value being created out there (even if I dislike some of it like AI), but I just find it disturbing to think that a lot of economic activity is just selling nonsense to each other rather than creating products or services of real value. 

I'm going to link some people here because I know they'll have smart things to say. And generate some responses here as well. Hey, maybe I can get paid per click from this thread! 😂

@Russell Brazil @Jay Hinrichs @James Wise @Chris Seveney @Don Konipol @James Hamling @Bruce Woodruff @Scott Trench @Jonathan Greene @Shiloh Lundahl @Steve Vaughan  and if I left you off this list it might be because I just couldn't get you tagged properly :)

[Chris Seveney]

Quote from @JD Martin:

I have been thinking about this for a while, and I was listening to a podcast tonight while I was in the shower and it just kind of brought it around to this thread. 

Today, it seems to me, at least in the US, there is a greater proportion of "huckster-ism" in our economy and in the ambitions of the population than in any time that I can remember (I'm half a decade from 60) in my life. I see and hear signs of this everywhere I look, and I like to think it's not just because I'm looking for it.

I'm no pollyanna. I know in any economic system, especially a capitalistic one, there will always be some proportion of people & businesses that don't deal or create anything of any real value. But today I see more of this than I can ever remember in the past, and I see it everywhere. Multitudes of people on BP looking to become rich on real estate by "wholesaling" or "rental arbitrage", essentially folks with no money or assets looking to punch their golden ticket. Dubious, or no value, real estate training courses, books, seminars, etc by people who often have less experience than the people they're "teaching". Syndications that hawk unreasonable returns and unbelievable risks while raking in chunks of fees for the syndicators, sometimes people who have almost no experience or knowledge in the products they're selling. 

And that's just what I see on BP. I see it everywhere. I have a grandson who aspires to make his fortune as an "influencer". Making money by getting people to follow his channel, where the only real monetization is due to the fact that legitimate businesses are willing to pay advertising money to place ads where eyeballs will see them. A lot of his friends think that getting a "real job" or creating a "real business" is for chumps. Why would you want to work a real job and save your money when you can do stupid stuff on Youtube, hawk junk products and try to get free AirBnb stays? 

Today it seems to me that everyone wants to make their money by being some kind of middleman, syphoning money off the interface. When I tell people about the hard work and long hours it took to rehab all the houses in our portfolio, they look at me like I have 3 heads. We created value by rehabilitating dilapidated housing and renting it out to people in need of quality homes to rent at reasonable prices. It wasn't rocket science. When I was a kid people created businesses by purchasing property and building homes, or renting out space and creating a nice restaurant, things like that. Hucksterism was Amway and Tupperware parties, but everyone knew it. Bringing this back to the podcast, the entire thing consisted of a guest telling people to figure out ways to sell repackaged information to people and generate advertising dollars, which the podcast itself was generating by appealing to people's get rich quick bias. 

I'm no Luudite, and I know there's still plenty of things of value being created out there (even if I dislike some of it like AI), but I just find it disturbing to think that a lot of economic activity is just selling nonsense to each other rather than creating products or services of real value. 

I'm going to link some people here because I know they'll have smart things to say. And generate some responses here as well. Hey, maybe I can get paid per click from this thread! 😂

@Russell Brazil @Jay Hinrichs @James Wise @Chris Seveney @Don Konipol @James Hamling @Bruce Woodruff @Scott Trench @Jonathan Greene @Shiloh Lundahl @Steve Vaughan  and if I left you off this list it might be because I just couldn't get you tagged properly :)

Unfortunately the glitz and glamour is what sells, especially training programs. No one wants to hear that you are going to have to work 60 hours a week to get your business built and once its built it will run itself.  While at times I sit here and shake my head, I have always been a "hustle guy" from when I was a kid also running out full speed even a groundball I hit back to the pitcher (because that is what I was taught). 

People want the easy way out, but in that same token those who work their tails off can have significant benefit and advantage over this. For example I will use myself where we buy defaulted debt and it is a lot of work to manage. Most do not want to do what we do, as its like cleaning portajohns. But we see tremendous opportunities because many other competitors never even open the proverbial portajohn door because so many times it has been a taco bell explosion that they also miss a lot of the brand new/clean and shiny opportunities because they did not want to do the work to even see what they had.

For those in real estate i ask you, how many who take the easy road - such as wholesaling off MLS have been able to retire off wholesaling? How many airbnb arbitrage people? Yes there are probably a few, but there are over 1M people subscribed to this forum and my guess is it is less than 100 (that is probably very high number too).

Then look at who was tagged in this post - people who are active and doing what they say they are doing and not taking shortcuts. I would bet everyone named in that list could buy everyone a very nice dinner several times over if you know what i mean.