"I was very fortunate in my gene mix. The gambling instincts I inherited from my father were matched by my mother's gift for analysis." - T. Boone Pickers
Meet T. Boone Pickens, born May 22, 1928, who is an American business magnate and financier. Pickens chairs the hedge fund BP Capital Management. He was a well-known takeover operator and corporate raider during the 1980s. As of September 2013, Pickens has a net worth of $950 million.
Pickens was born in Holdenville, Oklahoma, the son of Grace (née Molonson) and Thomas Boone Pickens. His father worked as an oil and mineral landman. During World War II, his mother ran the local Office of Price Administration, rationing gasoline as well as other goods in three counties.
At age 12, Pickens delivered newspapers. He expanded his paper route from 28 papers to 156. Pickens later cited this boyhood job as an early introduction to "expanding quickly by acquisition", a business practice he favored later in his life.
Since 1980, Pickens has made over $5 million in political donations. He was a financial supporter of President George W. Bush and contributed heavily to both his Texas and national political campaigns. In 2004, Pickens contributed to Republican 527 groups, including a $2 million contribution to the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth which ran a campaign asserting that Bush's rival, John Kerry, exaggerated claims about his service in Vietnam, and $2.5 million to the Progress for America advocacy group. In 2005, Pickens was among 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to Bush's second inauguration.
Pickens has given more than $700 million away to charity, while nearly $500 million has been donated to Oklahoma State University. Pickens is among the billionaires who have made The Giving Pledge, a commitment to give away half of his wealth away for charitable purposes.
Educated, obviously wealthy, a philanthropist, T. Boone Pickers is a successful business man among other things. Though I wouldn't consider him a self made man, and many would say that an inheritance of a professional mother and father lead him to a life of even greater success. However, do not take that as an excuse to be less of an admirer of his success in life, but as a foundation for the comparison between this man and the one below.
Meet T. Boone Pickens, born May 22, 1928, who is an American business magnate and financier. Pickens chairs the hedge fund BP Capital Management. He was a well-known takeover operator and corporate raider during the 1980s. As of September 2013, Pickens has a net worth of $950 million.
Pickens was born in Holdenville, Oklahoma, the son of Grace (née Molonson) and Thomas Boone Pickens. His father worked as an oil and mineral landman. During World War II, his mother ran the local Office of Price Administration, rationing gasoline as well as other goods in three counties.
At age 12, Pickens delivered newspapers. He expanded his paper route from 28 papers to 156. Pickens later cited this boyhood job as an early introduction to "expanding quickly by acquisition", a business practice he favored later in his life.
Since 1980, Pickens has made over $5 million in political donations. He was a financial supporter of President George W. Bush and contributed heavily to both his Texas and national political campaigns. In 2004, Pickens contributed to Republican 527 groups, including a $2 million contribution to the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth which ran a campaign asserting that Bush's rival, John Kerry, exaggerated claims about his service in Vietnam, and $2.5 million to the Progress for America advocacy group. In 2005, Pickens was among 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to Bush's second inauguration.
Pickens has given more than $700 million away to charity, while nearly $500 million has been donated to Oklahoma State University. Pickens is among the billionaires who have made The Giving Pledge, a commitment to give away half of his wealth away for charitable purposes.
Educated, obviously wealthy, a philanthropist, T. Boone Pickers is a successful business man among other things. Though I wouldn't consider him a self made man, and many would say that an inheritance of a professional mother and father lead him to a life of even greater success. However, do not take that as an excuse to be less of an admirer of his success in life, but as a foundation for the comparison between this man and the one below.
More than two decades ago, then-33-year-old Dan Price had a wife, two small children, a high-interest mortgage, and a stressful job as a photojournalist in Kentucky. He worried daily about money and the workaday grind.
“I told myself, ‘buck up and pay the bills,’” said Price. “This is just the way normal life is.”
He learned about the "simple life", when he read Payne Hollow, a 1974 book about author Harlan Hubbard’s rejection of modernity and his primitive home on the shore of the Ohio River. Price’s marriage dissolved soon after, and the whole family moved to Oregon, where he grew up. Price opted to move alone into a tiny cabin in the woods, then a flophouse, then a teepee, and finally into an underground “Hobbit hole” on a horse pasture near a river, where he still lives. During the winter, he decamps to Hawaii to surf and avoid the harsh weather.
Price’s version of the simple life costs $5,000 a year, which he earns from either publishing a wilderness zine or doing odd jobs around Joseph, his eastern Oregon town. “I like being able to do what I want to do,” said Price, who pays $100 a year for his land. “I don’t believe in houses or mortgages. Who in their right mind would spend their lifetime paying for a building they never get to spend time in because they are always working?”
The main difference that we can say about this man when it comes to poverty and those who might have been in similar or worse conditions that Price was at in the beginning, is that he chose this life. Poverty by choice is somewhat controversial, but we see a certain stability that he brings him, just like the man above who makes millions, they both live a life of stability though with a tremendous difference of wealth.
You may have thought that the comparison would have been something more along the lines of a wealthy person versus someone who is on welfare programs and faces adversity on that scale, though the comparison I have elected to make serves to show that even in poverty you can find a solution through not making more money, but through the choice of adapting a simplistic lifestyle around having less.
“I told myself, ‘buck up and pay the bills,’” said Price. “This is just the way normal life is.”
He learned about the "simple life", when he read Payne Hollow, a 1974 book about author Harlan Hubbard’s rejection of modernity and his primitive home on the shore of the Ohio River. Price’s marriage dissolved soon after, and the whole family moved to Oregon, where he grew up. Price opted to move alone into a tiny cabin in the woods, then a flophouse, then a teepee, and finally into an underground “Hobbit hole” on a horse pasture near a river, where he still lives. During the winter, he decamps to Hawaii to surf and avoid the harsh weather.
Price’s version of the simple life costs $5,000 a year, which he earns from either publishing a wilderness zine or doing odd jobs around Joseph, his eastern Oregon town. “I like being able to do what I want to do,” said Price, who pays $100 a year for his land. “I don’t believe in houses or mortgages. Who in their right mind would spend their lifetime paying for a building they never get to spend time in because they are always working?”
The main difference that we can say about this man when it comes to poverty and those who might have been in similar or worse conditions that Price was at in the beginning, is that he chose this life. Poverty by choice is somewhat controversial, but we see a certain stability that he brings him, just like the man above who makes millions, they both live a life of stability though with a tremendous difference of wealth.
You may have thought that the comparison would have been something more along the lines of a wealthy person versus someone who is on welfare programs and faces adversity on that scale, though the comparison I have elected to make serves to show that even in poverty you can find a solution through not making more money, but through the choice of adapting a simplistic lifestyle around having less.