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Your main assets arent money or things. Its the knowledge, skills and connectionsyou possess. Take stock of them. What do you know? What can you do? Whom do youknow? Make lists and think about these things, with an eye to maximizing their value.

The chances are excellent theres a better and more profitable allocation of yourtime. Even successful rock stars tend to reinvent themselves every few years. You dont want to get stale.

Remember, the essence of becoming wealthy is to produce more than you consume and save the difference. But its hard to maximize value working for somebody else.And when youre given a job, it can be taken away for any number of reasons. Thereis cause and there is effect. You dont want to be the effect of somebody elses cause. You want to be the cause for everything in your life. That implies workingfor yourself. At least turn your present employer into a partner or an associate. Think like an entrepreneur at all times. Remember that there is an infinite desire for goods and services on the part of the 6 billion other people on the planet. Find out how you can give them what they want, and the money will roll in.(You cant be everywhere and do everything).

But now that I think about it, if I wanted to make a real fortune today from a small base, I might prefer Africa to any other continent. As an educated Westerner, you can quickly meet anyone, on an equal level, much more easily than you could at home. If you have a reason that makes any sense at all, you can be in the

office of the president within a week. These countries are all plagued with incompetence and corruption, they need everything, and theyre full of untapped resources and talent. This all inures to the great advantage of a foreign entrepreneur.

Heres an idea. For your next vacation, book a trip to Cameroon, Togo, Gabon, Zimbabwe or Angola. Go through the Yellow Pages in the capital and meet everybody who is anybody. The chances are good youll come up with several deals in the firstweek alone. If you cant find the time, send your kid whos just out of school and idiotically thinks he may want to misallocate time and money getting an MBA. Thisidea alone should be worth a million dollars. Or, as I would prefer to think ofit, 700 ounces of gold.

But to an economist, money, like all goods, has declining marginal utility. In other words, the more of something you have, the less you need or want the next unit. Of course more is always better, but its unseemly, even degrading, to pursue anything beyond a certain point.

Is it worth it to get more? Perhaps not, unless your interests in the rest of life are entirely too narrow. The point of money is to allow you freedom, not makeyou crazy with getting more.

That doesnt rule out speculation as an avocation, however. More everything else being equal is still better.

Most people will try to outrun inflation by trading or gambling. The markets, wh

ich are the natural friend of productive people, will perversely prove very destructive to them in the years to come. Youll know when the final bottom in the stock market has come: The average guy wont want to hear about the stock market, ifhe even remembers it exists. And if he does, hell want it abolished.

Instead of becoming a victim of inflation and other politically caused distortions in the marketplace, you can profit from these things. Rational speculation isthe optimum approach.

Productive people people who work hard to provide goods and services for others

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definitely tend to be wealthier than unproductive people. They deserve to be. And since we dont live in a malevolent universe, people generally get what they deserve. So, yes, wealth is definitely one indicator of moral excellence.

Sure, some wealthy people got that way by lying, cheating and stealing. But theyre exceptions. Its much easier to become wealthy if (in addition to having virtueslike diligence, competence and judgment) you are known to be truthful and honest. Those who automatically think ill of the rich are, at best, paranoid fools. Put it this way: Rich people may lack some virtues, but they definitely have at least a few that made them rich. Poor people, on the other hand, will certainly lack some virtues, and theyll definitely have some vices that kept them poor.

20th century Russian mystic, who was also a merchant adventurer at some points in his colorful life said that anyone who successfully employed at least 20 otherpeople must be considered at least partially enlightened and a type of guru. That viewpoint always resonated with me. Self-made wealthy people may not be saints or mystics or intellectuals or even especially thoughtful or moral. But theyveproven theyre better than the average bear in at least one important way: they can create and conserve wealth. And theyve thereby eased everyones path to further accomplishments.

Third, dont give your money to charity. Entirely apart from showing a lack of both imagination and foresight, its a complete waste of good money, pure and simple.Contrary to popular opinion, it rarely does any good; it often does great harm.

The whole concept of charitable giving is corrupt and desperately in need of acomplete rethinking. carefully consider how to dispose of your estate. For one thing, theres no reason to automatically leave anything to your children unless they deserve it. The notion that someone should inherit just because he shares your genes is flawed and thoughtless. Also consider that dividing wealth dissipatesit and generally makes it less useful. If you have a million dollars, you couldleave a thousand dollars to each of a thousand people. The larger the pool of capital, the more ways it can be used, the more creative power it has, and the more likely it will be conserved and used creatively.