American billionaires have gotten $280B richer since the start of the pandemic
I&#x27;m 39. I lost my job last September, when the startup I had worked for the last four years had folded.<p>I don&#x27;t have a 401(k), and I only had $110k saved. For my entire life, I have I kept my money out of the stock market. I only dabbled a little - only $600 of my savings came from a few shares of AMZN that I bought and sold back in 2017. The rest was from paychecks.<p>I started to wise up last year, when I read that the yield curve had inverted. I didn&#x27;t have a clue as to what event would trigger a drop in stocks, but I knew something was coming. So my plan for <i>months</i> has been to buy when most people were panicking, and then to basically just sit on the stocks until cooler heads prevail.<p>Over a two week period starting on March 16th, I put every cent of my savings into the market. I learned on my feet, dumping the ETF shares I bought (VOO) for only an $89 loss, going directly against diversification, in favor of buying things I think I understand.<p>And you know what? I&#x27;m up 40 grand, and I really believe in the stocks I picked. As the other automakers drive off a cliff, TSLA is positioned perfectly (batteries, autonomy, lower TCO). And AAPL makes great products instead of depending on advertising. (I have other positions, including a bet on Chinese eVTOL maker eHang, but I&#x27;ll keep this brief.)<p>What I&#x27;m doing is pretty damn risky in the short-term. I could still lose all my gains and much of my principal. And I only have $10k in cash to live off of if I can&#x27;t find a job.<p>Hatred of the billionaires - whose companies invent and produce the things that drive our living standards up - also hurts conscientious people like me. Instead of envying the rich, focus on how to <i>get</i> rich yourself.<p>NB: Gains from stocks are <i>not</i> free money! What I&#x27;m doing feels like a full-time job, as I continually worry about losing everything. This involves an incredible amount of research and planning, the ability to take on an incredible amount of risk, and that&#x27;s stuff that the envious haters never see.