Li Ka-Shing teaches you how to buy a car and house in 5 years | Hacker News Reader

Li Ka-Shing teaches you how to buy a car and house in 5 years

therealsingapore.com

86 pointsswohns80 comments

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So:

1. don't be unemployed or under-employed (he clearly says it is your fault if so)

2. don't get sick, not mentioned anywhere what happens then, does HK have universal healthcare?

This sounds a bit like McDonald's financial advice to their employees

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/personal-finance/mcdonalds-f...

btw, this guy made his money by buying cheap real-estate and got lucky when prices went up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Ka-shing#Real_estate

In reality, Li went to school for a couple of years and then started working for a wealthy uncle (from the family that owns Hong Kong's Chung Nam Watch Co.). Subsequently he became part of an important subcategory of tycoons who got ahead, in part, by marrying the boss's daughter.

HK has one of the best public healthcare systems in the world (modelled after the NHS before handover, and benefiting from HK's prosperity after), and as a result does extremely well in infant mortality and life expectancy metrics.

This is actually great to hear. Now why doesn't the US, sigh.

US has reasonably good system IMHO just a little bit expensive.

A system that you can't afford to use is never very good for you. Healthcare systems should be judged on how they serve the overall population, not just those who can afford to use them.

There should be more properties by which system is valued. Free system can be inefficient, corrupt and slow like it is partially in my country. Still results surprisingly are quite similar to US looking at statistics.

A little bit?

There are many millions without insurance in the USA.

I was quoted $80 for an antibiotic I needed last week.

That's not fair. What antibiotic and how much of it? Not all antibiotics are equal.

You are right, the prices in our system are out of control but your example does not sufficiently demonstrate the problem.

Wow. That looks outrageous. Unless it is some new antibiotics. Still in my case if I get sick I get some free services but I usually should pay myself for my medicine.

So only good if you are not too poor. Sounds perfect to me...

You make assumption that free health systems in Europe are accessible to poor as well. I can't speak about Western Europe but in Eastern Europe free has cost as well. While it is not as expensive as USA. Unless you get some rare illness that only USA doctors know how to treat.

Been free (paid for though taxes of course) in both the UK and Spain. I hear Germany (and I think France) has a mixed model, but I am sure it is not as daft as the American system.

A little bit?! I had an accident a few years ago which ended with me falling into water and getting hypothermia, although I was fortunate not to have any injuries apart from a few scrapes and bruises. I was taken by ambulance to hospital and spnt 12 hours in the ICU. I got a bill for >25k, though I was able to negotiate this down to $15 and had the resources to pay it.

That's about $2000 per hour. I was seen by 6 different doctors, none of whom bothered to read each others' notes. I was charged $1000 to get (painfully) fitted with a catheter when I would have been fine with a bedpan. The discharge nurse released me with someone else's paperwork and prescriptions. The only part of it that was good value was the CAT scan.

There are no cost controls in American healthcare and it's wildly inefficient (not basing this solely on the experience above).

I was sarcastic about "a little bit" part. While it was expensive you got service and some attention. Still I agree that it is unreasonably expensive.

I choose to believe that you are a master of sarcasm.

Partially and I guess I have not managed to express that in English (as it is not my native language). Overall you could get better health services, just look at health related statistics in various parts of the world and while it is not perfect but it is not the worst. I'm from country that has more or less the same level as USA if we speak about general health related problems. I sometimes have to pay extra to get better service. What's worse than in USA? Overall knowledge level of doctors is lower than in USA and if I will get some rare illness most probably I will need to pay for doctors from USA if I can afford them.

Don't worry, our government want to sell it off and try and model it on the US system....

There are both pros and cons. HK healthcare system is quite affordable but has long lines. They optimize for the cheapest effective medication rather than the best healthcare you can offer.

For all the valid criticism you have pointed out, this doesnt make his advise invalid. In fact that seems to be at the core of his advise... the key take away is the majority of your efforts should go to investing in increasing your social circle, and making use of this social circle to advance yourself...

like it or lump it or even find it distasteful but it is consistent and rational advise... and it worked for him... he shmoozed his rich uncle into giving him a foot in the door, and then married into a successful family to get further ahead

It's never what you know. It's always who you know.

"Gentlemen, when I first started Reynholm Industries I had two things in my posession: A dream and six million pounds."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxVivkXUfdU&t=15

Also it helps when you're able to build a huge monopoly in hong kong http://www.economist.com/node/413357

Don't forget TOM.COM.

His nickname in Hong Kong is "Superman" so everybody trusted him. During the first dot.com he jumped on board the IPO wagon resulting in mom and pop investors getting absolutely fleeced. I think after that episode people began to see him truly for what he is: just another rich guy playing the politicians to extend his empire, built mostly on property.

Another tidbit. His younger son, Richard Lee, promoted himself as a tech guru having graduated from Stanford studying computer science (it said so on the IPO prospectus). Journalists later discover that in fact he had attended but dropped out of Stanford, and instead went to Canada to work at his dad's financial firm, before returning to Hong Kong to help run the family business.

You got to love all these baby boomer aged investors giving advice on how to get rich. Most my age never got the chance to buy property ridiculously cheap, and are now having to rent it from the boomers.

Not sure how old you are, but did you consider property in Florida or Detroit during the global financial crisis? Planet Money had the story of a girl who bought a house for $12,000 and rents it at $700/month:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/03/09/148218539/this-14-...

I'm not saying it's easy (hey, I didn't do it myself). But there have been opportunities. You've got to put the effort into finding the opportunities & be brave enough to jump in & take the risk.

Nope, from Scotland, where the government seem happy to trash the economy to keep house prices high.

I actually first saw this article on reddit, and someone posted the following

http://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/1y6xqr/hong_ko...

>Li Ka-shing is an impressive man, and he drops some good wisdom here. I certainly don't want to knock it. But here's how you become Li Ka-shing: show up in the middle of a war zone with a little cash, a lot of ambition and no scruples. Smuggle supplies for both sides, at a major premium, of course, and use your profits to slip your sticky fingers deep down into the underbelly of your city (that's where the buying lunch for more knowledgable people comes in). Then you use your newfound influence to quash the competition, and any dreams of a free market in your chosen territory. Buy up all the prime land, take over the port, and stand there at the door with a shit-eating grin on your face when the Chinese roll in with their tanks, because they're happy to make you even richer as long as you do what they say.

> You want to set up a department store chain to compete with Li Ka-shing's? Well you're shit out of luck, because he owns the shopping mall where you set up, and for some reason, security won't let your delivery trucks in, and they happen to be fixing the sidewalk right in front of your door. Want to compete with his shipping business? Sorry, things are really backed up at Li's port, what with the sudden unscheduled maintenance on that crane near your berth.

> Sorry for the rant. A lot of people think that Hong Kong is some bastion of the free market. It's actually a really dirty oligopoly, run by Li and a handful of other people like him. It just happens that if you're another Asian billionaire, or a major bank, you can park your money there basically free of charge, with no questions asked. Just don't try to bootstrap your way from Chunking Mansion to the private jet-set. Not on his watch.

> Having said that, Li Ka-shing did start from next to nothing, and he did pull himself up by his bootstraps to become one of the richest men in Asia. He's certainly a highly capable guy, but he has made many very questionable decisions along the way. Being rich isn't everything. I'm just hoping I can work my way to a comfortable retirement, and at least be able to sleep at night when I look back over my choices in life.

I claim to have done no fact checking, but the user seemed at least someone in touch with HK politics, way more so than myself :)

This is true, I live in Hong Kong. It's easy to find yourself in an apartment, internet/phone, electricity provided by LKS. Then you go downstairs to the shopping centre that's part of your apartment and the food store, the pharmacy and the shopping centre itself are also owned by LKS.

Hong Kong, is owned by a bunch of families, it's as far from a free market and is more like a capitalist aristocracy.

"I'm just hoping I can work my way to a comfortable retirement, and at least be able to sleep at night when I look back over my choices in life."

---

I feel the same way. I have ethics and morals. Humans are not merely pawns to be manipulated by me as I climb to the top. I try to live each day without regret. Anyone can get rich. The question is can they live with themselves afterward.

I find it fascinating that that the consensus among the responses in this thread seems to be somewhere between Li Ka-Shing being a hypocrite, that buying food for people richer than you is crazy, that his advice is useless, etc.

Sure, there are cultural incongruities. Americans don't understand buying lunch for your superiors, and the advice to beat yourself up if you fail to see progress is directly opposed to the "do your best" attitude that lives on this side of the Pacific, but the lessons are the same.

In the end, the moral is simple: wheeling and dealing. Being crafty. Placing yourself in a situation where opportunities find you, not vice versa. Focusing your personal development on becoming competent enough to act on your opportunities.

What bugs me is that this sort of hustling is necessary to thrive in any business, not just software. I suspect HN's criticism of this advice might be a sign of wantrepreneurship rather entrepreneurship.

Where I work you cannot gift your superiors and lunches are a gift. You can gift downward.

>Where I work you cannot gift your superiors

You'd be surprised. There are lots of things an inventive employee can do. Official rules aren't everything.

I'm rather a fan of getting work done ahead of schedule, presenting me with interesting problems, learning new technologies, and presenting sound arguments why my idea is bad/could be improved.

I like my team.

That's because your premise is that good conduct will be rewarded. Depending with whom you work with it also puts you in a good position to being exploited.

In some cases you might be able to circumvent the rules, but in others you would end up getting your boss fired if they accepted the gift.

And then, if you have played your cards right, you take his position.

You completely misunderstand the "Curse of the Gifted".

The point of that article was that hustle will only take you so far, and after that point real engineering projects require design and process, least of all because you need to interact with other people. Write software on a team, work on a large project, and you'll understand this better.

The things espoused by this guy are more a function of good luck and parasitism than hustle--do not mistake one for the other.

You're right, I did slightly misinterpret the post. I've removed it and supported my argument in a different way.

Also I don't appreciate the implication that I don't write software on a team for a large project, because I do.

>Americans don't understand buying lunch for your superiors.

More wealthy/higher ranking/socially powerful/popular/lucky != superior.

I occasionally buy lunch for my friends and co-workers out of mutual respect and a genuine desire to show them that the relationships we share are appreciated. If one of them happens to be my supervisor, so be it. But there has to be a mutually respectful relationship between us.

I'd also have to seriously question the character of anyone who, being aware of the fact that they make multiple times your income, would still allow you to buy them lunch (Unless it was a trivial amount).

Richer obviously != better. But being richer === being richer. He's saying if you want more money, hang out with richer people, and you'll pick up some tips. And a good way to get time with someone is to buy them lunch.

You're right that the entire theme of the article sort-of implies richer is better, but a plain reading of it just says: here's how to own a car and a house. It makes no promises about being a nice person.

I wasn't criticizing the entire article. I was disagreeing with a single person's claim that disagreeing with a cultural norm is the same thing as failing to understand it.

Most of the advice in the original article was pretty good. I just happen to prefer meeting people in a more natural manner. I just wouldn't feel right spending my free time trying to manipulate my way into a rich person's life with the hope that I might somehow benefit from it in the long run.

I don't see why a lot of people disagree with his advice. Perhaps it is the words he uses. These are his basic divisions of cash.

1. Live cheaply. Don't waste money where you don't need to.

2. Expand your network by being nice and friendly to people.

3. Learn and invest in your future.

4. Take time off, travel the world and expand your horizons.

5. Save money. This is ideally used to start your dream. In reality, this can be used in times of trouble.

What's so bad about that? I think this is good advice for anyone trying to ``make it''.

I think the problem people seem to have is that it is standard, stereotypical advice. The entire premise is built upon the fact that you have a job that pays enough money to allow you to do the things he's suggesting -- people with untapped upward mobility.

If you're in a situation where you're working multiple jobs (or can't find any jobs) just to be able to "eat poorly", you won't have the time or money to network, invest in your future, travel, or save up.

Want to lose weight? Don't eat so much.

I am from Hong Kong, the article appears to be a spam/fake article: http://finance.sina.com.hk/news/-3-5652018/1.html (Chinese)

Google Translate: "Li Ka-shing, said through a spokesman, He never made similar remarks."

Google Translate might not be very clear, but the article actually says that Li Ka-Shing denied authorship of this article on 20 February 2013. (Yes, 2013!)

This current resurgence is probably linked to an English translation being posted on e27 in the past 24 hours, before being subsequently picked up by TRS: http://mirror.e27.co/li-ka-shing-teaches-buy-car-house-5-yea...

Just a note that The Real Singapore is not representative of Singapore's media scene.. while it is not quite an equivalent of The Onion, it is also not the first news source for most locals. I am quite embarrassed to see it linked to on HN.

Eng: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1154751/li-ka-shi...

>Famous theory from Harvard: The difference of a person’s fate is decided from what a person spends in his free time between 20:00 to 22:00.

Anyone know the source for this theory? I'd like to know more about it but googling turned up nothing but links to this article.

I actually like his categories:

    1. Living expenses - 30%
    2. Networking      - 20%
    3. Education       - 15%
    4. Travel          - 10%
    5. Savings         - 25%

But his living expenses category seems to exclude housing costs - is there some cultural peculiarity that accounts for that?

Probably the fact its somewhat expected for asian youths to live at home with their parents until they are well established

Which, in Hong Kong, is likely to happen when you are 35 and have kids already. All living in about 400~600sqft.

Well, after struggling for a year and if your second year salary is still RMB 2,000, then that means you have not grown as a person. You should be really ashamed of yourself. Do yourself a favour and go to the supermarket and buy the hardest tofu. Take it and smash it on your head because you deserve that.

This is hilarious. I wish people in western media would say things like this more often.

"Always remember to buy lunch for people who are richer than you"

I have spotted a conflict of interest here.

Not to mention his ultimate paradox of spending money on others when you are poor and spend money on yourself when you are rich.

Apart from the impracticality of this advice, I found it strangely misanthropic. Essentially: "be generous now so you can afford to be even more selfish later".

That is actually excellent advice.

I think it is good advice. He says to do it twice per month, not everyday.

It sounds dumb in those words, but the concept is good. This can be as simple as saying ``lets get coffee'' and you buy the other person the coffee. It is a friendly thing to do and people like that. People don't forget when you do small things for them, like this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_(social_psychology)

In that same paragraph, I find it amusing calling those people "friends" when you are actually creating a connection with them simply because you want to extract value from it...

His pro-tip seems to be to get a 150% pay rise after 12 months.

Getting a raise from $320/month to $480/month USD isn't that insane. The rules aren't hard and fast either. They're just goals to set for yourself.

To be fair, going from monthly income of RMB2000 to RMB3000 in a year is not a particularly difficult task. Most corporate types will get that just by showing up.

> By the second year, your income should be increased to at least RMB 5,000. Minimum it should be RMB 3,000, otherwise you would not be able to keep up with inflation.

He's saying to expect to go from RMB 2,000 to _at least_ RMB 5,000.

And then to get a part-time job.

[..] Well, after struggling for a year and if your second year salary is still RMB 2,000, then that means you have not grown as a person. You should be really ashamed of yourself. Do yourself a favour and go to the supermarket and buy the hardest tofu. Take it and smash it on your head because you deserve that.[..]

Hahaha smash your head with tofu if you don't get a raise. :))

The idea make me curdle!

"Living expenses" is not just food. What about rent, utilities, taxes, health, debts?

As others have pointed out, the (regional) expectation may be that the subject is living at home with their parents (rent / utilities), that there's state-provided healthcare and education (debt). At this income level you might not be paying much income tax, either.

~30% of my post-tax take-home goes to rent, which is pretty typical in the US. If I didn't have to pay that, I'm sure I could save a bunch more!

In Hong Kong, most people don't leave home till they marry.

"Well, after struggling for a year and if your second year salary is still RMB 2,000, then that means you have not grown as a person. You should be really ashamed of yourself. Do yourself a favour and go to the supermarket and buy the hardest tofu. Take it and smash it on your head because you deserve that."

The supermarket is fresh out of hard tofu...

'The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity.' - Abraham Lincoln

His "network" advice is really just "how to use people", and it's reprehensible.

Is this guy for real?

Nope, it seems to be a hoax.

Suppose your monthly income is only RMB 2,000, you can live well. I can help you put money into five sets of funds. The first $600, second $400, third $300, fourth $200, fifth $500.

Da fuq? Are we talking about renminbi or dollars here? Either way... terrible article.

the "$" sign is often used as a general currency sign.

Since 600+400+300+200+500 == 2000, the article is obviously talking about renminbi. And it doesn't matter a lot.

The writer probably didn't have a 元 or a ¥ on his keyboard and didn't know about ¤.

> Well, after struggling for a year and if your second year salary is still RMB 2,000, then that means you have not grown as a person. You should be really ashamed of yourself.

Lost all credibility right here.

Follow this and you will become a billionaire too?

Did I miss it or did he leave out rent?

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