When I Grow Up I Want to Be

You don’t need to earn a massive paycheck to become a millionaire.

As one-time Vermont-based janitor and gas station attendant Ronald Read demonstrated, you can reach the seven-figure mark on a modest salary.

Unbeknownst to everyone around him until he died at age 92 in June 2014, Read had , thanks to smart spending and investing habits.

Even Read’s family was “tremendously surprised” upon finding out about his hidden wealth. “He was a hard worker, but I don’t think anybody had an idea that he was a multimillionaire,” Read’s step-son in 2015.

Read came from humble beginnings. He was the first in his family to graduate from high school and served in North Africa, Italy and the Pacific theater during World War II, . After the war, he came home to work at a gas station and as a janitor at JCPenney, and married a woman who had two children.

Read maintained a frugal lifestyle, never spending money unless he had to. Friends remember him driving a , using safety pins to hold his coat together and cutting his own firewood well into his 90s.

“I’m sure if he earned $50 in a week, he probably invested $40 of it,” .

He was also a good stock picker and had the control to hold onto stocks for the long haul, a strategy .

“Mr. Read owned at least 95 stocks at the time of his death, many of which he had held for years, if not decades,” in 2015.

“Among his longtime holdings were blue-chip stalwarts such as , , and . When he died, he also had large stakes in , and ,” the publication reported.

The lifelong resident of Brattleboro, Vt., left $6 million of his fortune to his local library and hospital.

“It was the talk of the town,” director Starr LaTronica told CNBC of the generous $1.2 million library donation. “People still come in and ask about it and reference it.”

The library invested the bulk of the money. That way, “it will continue to pay dividends and support us down the road,” LaTronica said. The donation also allowed the library to extend its hours and do some much-needed renovations to the 50-year-old building.

Read bequeathed $4.8 million to , where he was a regular — not for treatment, but for breakfast. “He always had a cup of coffee and an English muffin with peanut butter,” said of her friend’s morning ritual at the hospital cafe. “That was it. And he always sat at the exact same stool at the counter.”

The hospital plans to use the money to support infrastructure improvements and general modernization projects. “There are multiple areas in the hospital that need to be updated, and so this money will certainly allow us to do that,” Gina Pattison, director of development and marketing at the hospital, told CNBC. “We are just incredibly fortunate and grateful.”

a million dollars that could not be spent on myself, my main goal would be to have fun. I am sure there are tons of completely decent charities and organizations that could put a large cash donation to great use, but just giving away all that money to charity sounds completely BORING! I can think of some great ways to spend one million dollars, while having fun and helping people at the same time. This sounds like a great idea to me! The first obstacle I would face is to find a way to have fun, but to not officially spend the money on myself.

Then I would need to find a worthwhile candidate who would be willing to share a $250,000 gift with me. I’m hoping this person would take me to Italy and the French Riviera. This has to be why people have friends. I would write a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Nathaniel Pardon, my best friend! Try to imagine your best friend in the world has just received a $250,000 sum of cash. Vacation time! We would bounce around Europe, stay in drastically expensive hotels, and see the sites. Another part of our fun in Europe would be to host a street skateboarding competition at the local skate park.

The winner would get a $100,000 grand prize, donated by me. The grand prize is enough money to draw all the professional skateboarders into the competiton. I would make some very impressive new friends. At the end of a three day competition a winner would be chosen and paid in cash. No corporate sponsors would be needed. What a lovely thought! All of this would be for the progression of the sport I love. This competition would help many people, skaters and friends alike; but most especially the winner. With $650,000 left, I would return back to the U. S. to my family.

There are some serious issues in my family that a lot of money could easily correct. My mother and little sister recently moved to Louisiana due to the recession in Detroit. In order to get my family back together, I would buy my mother a nice house in Metro Detroit, close to where my family lives. She’s a shopper, so I would also give her $50,000 for spending money. It seems extravagant, but she has put up with a lot of trouble from me, so it is the least I could do. With a house and tremendous amount of money to handle all financial issues, my mother and sister would be anxious to move back.

Even though it might seem that this money is being spent to secure my happiness, it is not. My little sister misses her family in Michigan a great deal. This would be for her, above anyone else. Once my little sister is home again and things are great, all I would wish to do is help other families in the same way. With the remaining money, I would start an organization I would call “Reconnecting Families in Need” (R. F. I. N. ). An organization of my creation, designed to help reunite family members with their loved ones and do what is necessary to keep them together and secure. I feel this is a much needed program.

After all, what in this world is more important than family? Out of the million dollars, $250,000 would be used to fund Reconnecting Families in Need. A lot of families would be helped. There are still plenty of other places and people I would like to help. In order to keep up my helping spree, I would use the remainder of the one million dollars and invest it in a non-profit investment banking firm. The firm would be run by Wall Street professionals who want to make a difference. Money made through the firm would be used to further the mission of R. F. I. N. and its affiliates.

Hopefully, this would allow the R. F. I. N. to last a very long time. My money would then be lending a hand to thousands of families. If I was given a million dollars that could not be spent on myself, I would be forced to learn the value of helping others. Without the option to blow the million dollars on myself, I would focus on doing what I could to aid people in need. I would find personal uses for this money, but as I have learned, I would probably find more happiness in the pleasure of others. There are families out there who need support, and given the opportunity, I would love to be the one to help them.

Israel’s Space Communication Ltd. said on Sunday it could seek $50 million or a free flight from Elon Musk’s SpaceX after a Spacecom communications satellite was destroyed last week by an explosion at SpaceX’s Florida launch site.

Officials of the Israeli company said in a conference call with reporters Sunday that Spacecom also could collect $205 million from Israel Aerospace Industries, which built the AMOS-6 satellite.

SpaceX said in an email to Reuters that it does not disclose contract or insurance terms. The company is not public, and it has not said what insurance it had for the rocket or to cover launch pad damages beyond what was required by the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial U.S. launches, for liability and damage to government property.

SpaceX has more than 70 missions on its manifest, worth more than $10 billion, for commercial and government customers.

The space launch company is one of three major transportation and energy enterprises Musk leads. The others are electric car maker Tesla Motors Inc. and SolarCity Corp., and Musk faces separate challenges at each of those money losing companies.

Spacecom has been hit hard in the aftermath of the Thursday explosion that destroyed the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and its payload. The Israeli company said the loss of the satellite would have a significant impact, with its equity expected to decline by $30 million to $123 million.

Spacecom shares dropped 9 percent on Thursday, with the explosion occurring late in the last trading day of the week. Trading in the shares was suspended on Sunday morning, and the stock plummeted another 34 percent when trading resumed.

In a conference call with reporters, Spacecom’s general counsel Gil Lotan said it was too early to say if the company’s planned merger with Beijing Xinwei Technology Group would proceed.

Xinwei last month agreed to buy Spacecom for $285 million, saying the deal was contingent on the successful launch and operation of Spacecom’s AMOS-6 satellite. “We hope to continue fruitful communications with the prospective buyer,” Lotan said.

Xinwei officials on Monday declined to comment on whether the incident would impact the terms of the deal.

The firm said in a statement on Friday it was in close communication with Spacecom about how the incident would impact the merger. It added the accident would not impact its broader strategy to establish an integrated space information network.

AMOS-6 was to be used by a number of key clients, including Facebook and Eutelsat Communications which leased the satellite’s broadband services to expand internet access in Africa. Both firms are pursuing other options, the companies said in separate statements after Thursday’s accident.

Cause unknown

The cause of the accident is under investigation. Neither SpaceX, nor the FAA which is overseeing the investigation, have said how much damage the explosion caused at SpaceX’s primary launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

SpaceX said on Friday that it would shift flights to a second launch site in Florida, which is nearing completion and which was last used to launch NASA’s space shuttles.

Thursday’s accident, which occurred as the company was fueling its rocket as part of a routine prelaunch test firing, was the second failed mission for Musk’s space company in 14 months. In June 2015, a Falcon 9 rocket exploded about two minutes after liftoff from Florida, destroying a load of cargo headed to the International Space Station.

SpaceX returned to flight in December and since then has flown nine times, all successfully. It was scheduled to fly for the 29th time on Saturday. SpaceX declined to comment about what impact Thursday’s accident would have on its schedule.

Sewing for Millionaires A two-hour drive from the capital of San Jose, Costa Rica, sits the small community of Turrialba where mostly young workers sit and sew baseballs destined for Major League Baseball teams. Rawlings Sporting Goods Company moved its baseball manufacturing operations from Haiti in 1986 when the political landscape of the country began to change. Rawlings selected the town of Turrialba due to the incentives offered to the company by the Costa Rican government. Rawlings was awarded a free-trade zone in which the company would be allowed to operate duty-free in the country.

Rawlings pays no import tariffs on the goods it imports to manufacture its baseballs, and the finished product can be shipped duty-free into the United States under the Caribbean Basin Initiative. The Turrialba region was hard hit economically in the 1980s when a major highway from the capital bypassed the town. Because travelers no longer stopped in Turrialba, the Costa Rican government wanted to develop the local area through foreign investment. Rawlings found the potential workforce better educated, and more disciplined than its workers in Haiti. The country was also well known for being very politically stable.

With few employment opportunities in the area, Rawlings had no difficulty in securing dedicated and motivated employees. Although Costa Rica is the wealthiest country in Central America, per capita income is still only about $4,200 a year. Costa Rica has a national unemployment rate of 6. 7 percent. However, the rate can vary from region to region. With the completion of the new highway and declining employment opportunities in the coffee and sugarcane industries, many local residents of Turrialba were eager to find stable employment. Most Rawlings employees in Costa Rica are engaged in sewing operations.

In the plant, 300 employees sit in rows of high back chairs and sew baseballs. Many employees break the boredom of the work by listening to music on their headphones. The plant employs a total of 575 workers. At one time Rawlings employed approximately 1,900 workers at the Costa Rican plant, however, employment fell when the company shifted production of its lower quality baseballs to China. The Rawlings plant takes a baseball core and wraps it in yarn. The product is then covered with cowhide and sewn by hand. Baseballs must be sewn by hand in order to achieve the quality level demanded by the Major Leagues.

Each worker sews 108 perfect stitches using a long needle and thread. The balls are then inspected, cleaned, and stamped with the MLB logo and the signature of the commissioner of baseball. The balls are then packed and shipped to the port city of Limon where they are loaded onto a ship bound for Port Everglades, Florida. The baseballs are then trucked to Rawlings’ Springfield, Missouri facility, and then to Major League teams or retail stores. Rawlings has been the exclusive supplier of baseballs to the Major Leagues since 1977. The Costa Rican facility produces approximately 2. million baseballs a year, with 1. 8 million of those going to Major League Baseball. The remaining balls are sold to minor league and college baseball teams, or sold to the public through retail stores or the Websites of MLB and Rawlings. Although Rawlings refuses to disclose the price of the baseballs paid by MLB, the baseballs retail on the company’s Website for $12. 99 per unit. Employees are paid $1. 21 per hour and receive the value of 67 cents an hour in benefits, or about 30 cents per ball produced. Workers can go home early in the week if they complete their production quotas.

Rawlings workers earn about 14 percent above the Costa Rican minimum wage. In addition to their wages, Rawlings employees in Costa Rica must be paid for eleven holidays, receive two weeks of paid vacation a year, and receive a Christmas bonus equal to one month’s pay. The Company must also pay into a retirement and medical plan and provide four months of maternity leave when needed. A 2004 New York Times article questioned the pay and working conditions of the Rawlings plant in Costa Rica. The article accused Rawlings and MLB of running a sweatshop in Costa Rica where workers were underpaid and worked in an unhealthy environment.

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader joined in the criticism by writing a letter to Bud Selig, MLB Commissioner and the Executive Director of the MLB Player Association. In the letter Nader condemned the two men for allowing baseballs to be manufactured in what he considered to be poor conditions. Portions of the letter follow: “Your respective organizations must not ignore their roles in this exploitation and abuse of worker rights committed under Major League Baseball and Player Association product sourcing and licensing agreements. ” “American consumers and baseball fans currently have no guarantee that any icensed Major League Baseball products are not being made under sweatshop conditions that violate basic human and worker rights standards. ” Major League Baseball consumer products vice president, Howard Smith, responded to the rising complaints by stating: “I can assure you that there is no company we do business with that knowingly goes into a factory with sub-par working conditions. ” Not everyone agrees with Mr. Smith. Maribel Alezondo Brenes worked at the Rawlings plant for seven years before her doctor told her to stop working there for health reasons.

Carpal tunnel syndrome has been noticed in the Rawlings employees due to the repetitive nature of the work. Dr. Carlos Guerrero who worked at the Rawlings plant as company physician says that up to 90 percent of Rawlings employees may have experienced pain from the work, from minor cuts to disabling injuries. Others feel that the plant has been a good addition to the region, including Warny Gomez, who worked at the Rawlings facility for four years and made enough money to attend college and to become a teacher.

With average pay for Major League Baseball players close to $2. 3 million a year, some Rawlings employees feel that their compensation is unjust. Many, however, feel like Alan Cascante, an eight-year employee of the baseball factory: “We can live on that (Rawlings wages). We never made that working in the fields. ” Plant manager, Ken West agrees with Cascante, by saying “The best thing’s the pay. We’re a good place to work. ” The debate over pay and working conditions of employees who supply MLB with its products appears to be growing in some quarters.

People like Kenneth Miller; a self-appointed champion of sweatshop workers takes his message to the fans by camping outside ballparks. He tells potential consumers of MLB products that the baseball player bobble head doll they are about to purchase was made by a Chinese worker who works 20 hour shifts for very little pay. Miller states that he often finds indifference among consumers. Some tell him: “Why are you trying to interrupt our nice day at the ballpark? Miller and a handful of others are pressuring MLB to take greater control over the working conditions of its suppliers, such as Rawlings. As the debate continues in the United States over the working conditions and pay of the Costa Rican employees and others, baseballs are sewn in Turrialba with pictures of Alex Rodriquez, Mike Piazza, and other baseball players hanging on the walls of the factory. Rawlings’ employees, however, are too busy sewing baseballs for the millionaire players to even notice the pictures hanging above them.

In the dramatis personae system in India, there is really small room for societal motion. It is really difficult for person born in a lower caste to travel up to a higher caste and get away the slums. Even if person who is born hapless plants hard and becomes monetarily affluent, they will still non be accepted by a higher caste. They may hold money but they will be populating in the same country with the same people as he or she has had to make their whole life. The increasing popularity of an American telecasting show in India, as portrayed in Slumdog Millionaire, is consistent with more and more citizens valuing pecuniary wealth over all else. It besides shows that the population doesn’t want to hold to work hard for their money. They want easy, fast money that involves really small attempt. Hence the popularity of the telecasting show. Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Not merely does a show like this promote pecuniary values over life experience and difficult work, but it besides makes Heroes out of people merely for going affluent. Many Indians were glued to their Television sets as they watched Jamal, a immature adult male from the Slums, drama to win six million rupees. They turned Jamal into a hero, merely for being affluent. They cheered him on as it is announced that he has won, non even cognizant that the money ne’er mattered to Jamal. He valued something much more cherished than physical wealth. He valued his life experience. hard-work and love above everything else. Society now yearss cheers person who did non hold to work for their money over person who has worked hard for what they have.