{"id":122,"date":"2015-09-13T12:14:51","date_gmt":"2015-09-13T12:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/?p=122"},"modified":"2015-09-13T12:14:51","modified_gmt":"2015-09-13T12:14:51","slug":"the-13-million-dollar-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/2015\/09\/13\/the-13-million-dollar-question\/","title":{"rendered":"The 13 Million Dollar Question"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A little while ago, I was invited to participate in a Class Action lawsuit for 13 million dollars. If successful, my share of this loot would only be a small fraction, perhaps a thousand dollars at most.<\/p>\n<p>The accused is an internet company I invested in back in the boom days. Like so many of those companies, their expectations fell far short of reality. They said they were going to make a billion, and a whole lot of suckers \u2013 err, I mean investors \u2013 wanted a piece of that.<\/p>\n<p>Myself included.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of the sum involved, I will NOT be participating in this suit. The main reason is this: I am a responsible person. That means when something goes wrong, I accept responsibility.<\/p>\n<p>That means:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If someone lies to me and I believe them, it\u2019s my fault.<\/li>\n<li>If I invest in some get-rich fast scheme and lose money, it\u2019s my fault.<\/li>\n<li>If I lend money to someone who never pays me back, it\u2019s my fault.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I take a risk expecting a reward &#8211; but there is no guarantee, nor should there be. My mistakes are my own, and no one owes me a thing. Not the CEO of the company, not the shareholders, not the taxpayers, not my mommy, not you, not anyone.<\/p>\n<p>No bailouts.<\/p>\n<p>Owning my mistakes has provided an invaluable education, and I make much fewer of them. It\u2019s forced me to pay attention and think about what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n<p>In turn, I also expect to own my successes.<\/p>\n<p>When I make a profit it belongs to me. Not to pay for wars, not to pay for your grandma\u2019s medicine, not to build windmills, or feed the poor, or fund your retirement \u2013 unless I WANT to do any of those things.<\/p>\n<p>No bailouts.<\/p>\n<p>This lawsuit I\u2019ve been invited to consists of people who cannot accept responsibility &#8211; being urged on by greedy lawyers &#8211; who are enabled by congress who put regulations in place &#8211; demanded by people who cannot accept responsibility.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes these people clamor for more \u201cregulation.\u201d Well guess what Sparky, more regulation leads to more lawsuits &#8211; more regulation leads to more bureaucrats. And these are all a gigantic drag on real productivity for real people in the real world.<\/p>\n<p>I want no part of this.<\/p>\n<p>We don\u2019t need more regulations \u2013 we need more responsibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A little while ago, I was invited to participate in a Class Action lawsuit for 13 million dollars. If successful, my share of this loot would only be a small fraction, perhaps a thousand dollars at most. The accused is an internet company I invested in back in the boom days. Like so many of those companies, their expectations fell&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/13-million-question-personal-responsibility-risk-investment.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jba6-1Y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124,"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions\/124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}