A day to mark Prince Harry’s historic victory over Rupert Murdoch – and to survey the awful toll on public life | Jane Martinson

The prince was right to fight – and also right about the need to stop good journalism being sullied by the bad. Trust has been severely damaged

The apology is “full and unequivocal”. The damages to be paid are huge. Appearing before the Leveson inquiry in 2011, Rupert Murdoch pronounced that to be “the most humble day of my life” . News Group’s settlement today of Prince Harry’s monumental case citing phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators may make this another such day. It appears to vindicate Harry, not just in complaints about his treatment by the Murdoch press, but also the intrusions into the life of his late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. One can only speculate about the sting of that within the Murdoch empire.

But if the best courtroom drama ends with a sense of justice being done and a triumphant winner, the long-awaited denouement is unlikely to win awards and the satisfaction for the victor, having settled the case must be – to some degree – limited. In this tale of celebrity, scandal and corruption there has been no obvious winner.

Jane Martinson is a Guardian columnist

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A Clear Example of a Misapplied Norm

I recognize that there is some disagreement about the preemptive pardons amidst the readership of the site, but let me join in the chorus of concern over cleaving to norms rather than addressing reality.

I give you the 46th and 47th presidents:

I understand, to a point, the degree to which a man of Biden’s age and temperament felt the need to not be an asshole (please excuse the technical language) towards the incoming president. But this bit of norm-indulgence was not necessary and sent a terrible signal to the broader population.

I am not at all convinced that having Trump over for tea was necessary, let along appropriate. I am certain, however, that greeting him with a friendly “welcome home” was an absurd thing to do given that Biden, and then Harris, campaigned against Trump on the predicate that he represented a threat to democracy.

Here’s a CNN headline from October: Biden believes Trump is a fascist, White House says .

Treating him as normal only makes it seem (or, perhaps even confirms) that all of that was just campaign rhetoric.

I get that Biden has to legally and constitutionally afford Trump legal access to the various levers of power within the executive branch. However, treating him as utterly normal was not only not needed, but undercuts his own campaign in 2020, the alleged goals of his administration, and Harris’ 2024 campaign against Trump.

And one didn’t have to catch much of Trump’s various utterances yesterday to note that he is in no way extending the outgoing administration any niceties nor fake politeness.

Part of what concerns me about the Biden pardons is that they do not uphold, in my view, his own stated fealty to democracy, justice, and the rule of law. His treatment of Trump has likewise undercut those positions.

And, of course, this is the least of the concerns raised by yesterday.

Trump Declares War on Federal Employees

As promised, President Trump signed several Executive Orders on his first day in office aimed at, depending on who you believe, eroding the power of The Deep State, making government employment sufficiently miserable that hordes quit, or some combination of those things. Most notable among these are orders seeking to curtail Civil Service protections for those deemed to be in “policy-connected” positions; ending telework; and a hiring freeze.

WaPo (“Trump reinstates plan to strip protections from federal workers“):

President Donald Trump on Monday reinstated a policy to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of federal workers, potentially allowing his administration to reshape agencies by stocking them with political loyalists.

The executive order was one of multiple first-day Trump directives aimed at overhauling the federal workforce of 2.3 million — including a hiring freeze, a strict return-to-office mandate, an update of hiring rules and changes designed to bring more accountability to career senior executives, in part by making them easier to dismiss.

The White House described the order stripping employment protections from agency employees as necessary to rein in what Trump and his allies have called a “deep state” of bureaucrats who resisted his plans during his first term.

“There have been numerous and well-documented cases of career Federal employees resisting and undermining the policies and directives of their executive leadership,” reads the order, signed by Trump around 9 p.m. on Monday. “Principles of good administration, therefore, necessitate action to restore accountability to the career civil service.”

Critics, though, have said the policy will upend the foundation of the modern civil service, where staffers are supposed to be hired based on merit and cannot be arbitrarily fired. Those in the new job category will have limited due process rights to appeal dismissals by the Trump administration.

“President Trump’s order is a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons,” Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 750,000 civil servants, said in a statement. “This unprecedented assertion of executive power will create an army of sycophants beholden only to Donald Trump, not the Constitution or the American people.”

Which, of course, is a feature, not a bug, from Trump’s standpoint.

NPR (“Trump seeks to end telework for federal workers“):

President Trump has signed an executive action directing federal agencies to order their workers back to the office full time.

“Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary,” the executive memo states .

Having more federal employees work from the office has long been a focus of Republicans.

“Service backlogs and delays, unanswered phone calls and emails, and no-show appointments are harming the health, lives, and aspirations of Americans,” Iowa Senator Joni Ernst wrote in a report released late last year.

[…]

Many flexible work arrangements predate the pandemic, though the federal government, like many offices, greatly expanded telework during COVID.

A number of agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Social Security Administration, agreed to long-term telework arrangements in their collective bargaining agreements.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000 federal and D.C. government employees, says it expects those agreements to be honored, given the Trump memo states that the directive “shall be implemented consistent with applicable law.”

Still, in a statement, AFGE president Everett Kelley called the directive a “backward action” and asked the Trump administration to rethink its approach.

“Providing eligible employees with the opportunity to work hybrid schedules is a key tool for recruiting and retaining workers in both the public and private sectors. Restricting the use of hybrid work arrangements will make it harder for federal agencies to compete for top talent,” he wrote in a statement.

He also warned that given the success federal agencies have had consolidating unused office space and selling off properties that were costly to maintain, there may no longer be enough office space to accommodate an influx of on-site workers.

In an opinion piece  in the Wall Street Journal last fall, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, whom Trump appointed to lead his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, suggested that requiring federal employees to return to the office five days a week “would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.”

“If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” they wrote.

Government Executive (“Trump will require agency plans to slash workforce as he lays out hiring freeze details“):

Federal agencies must develop plans to reduce the size of their workforces through efficiencies and attrition, President Trump announced on Monday, spelling out in a memorandum that they must roll out those proposals before lifting the hiring freeze he has put into place.

Trump froze federal hiring  on Monday in a presidential memorandum, following the practice he established when he took office in 2017. The federal workforce reduction plans also mirror those he required in order to lift the hiring moratorium he instituted in his first term. Most agencies in that instance never wound up producing definitive plans to slash their workforces and the White House later denied it ever asked for the blueprints for cuts

Trump’s latest hiring freeze is set to last 90 days, with the exception of the Internal Revenue Service where it will remain in effect until the Treasury Department and other officials agree it is “in the national interest” to lift it. Trump made clear that contracting out to circumvent the freeze was prohibited. 

“In carrying out this memorandum, the heads of executive departments and agencies shall seek efficient use of existing personnel and funds to improve public services and the delivery of these services,” Trump wrote. 

As expected, the freeze will not apply to the military or positions related to immigration enforcement, national security or public safety. The freeze will otherwise take effect regardless of the source of an agency’s funding stream. Political appointments under Schedule C the non-career Senior Executive Service will continue. The Office of Personnel Management on Monday issued new guidance  allowing for an unlimited number of appointees that Trump can temporarily deploy into agencies as his administration gets up and running, overriding more limited guidance the Biden administration had put forward

These orders were all foreshadowed in the campaign and will doubtless make a lot of people happy. Government employees are widely perceived to be lazy and overpaid.

There is already a suit filed to stop Schedule F and I expect others to follow. But, even if they’re rolled back substantially by the courts, they’ll achieve some of their desired effects. First and foremost, Trump gets the performance impact of having carried out his promises here. Second, they will almost certainly cause some of the most marketable career employees to leave government service for a more hospitable environment. The telework prohibition alone will be devastating, as many people took their jobs precisely because it offered that flexibility, which enables juggling two-earner households with children whose school schedules don’t align with a standard workday. Third, and perhaps most problematic of all, those who stay will be fearful of getting crossways with the new administration.

University of Michigan professor of public policy Don Moynihan observes,

This was better organized than before. Trump had his orders ready. Acting officials (usually career employees) were in key positions, and some of those officials had pre-drafted memos on hand. The reflects the fingerprints of the secret 180 Day Playbook  aspect of Project 2025, led by Russ Vought. 

Which is odd, in that we were constantly told that Trump had no connection to Project 2025 and, indeed, had never heard of it.

As to the hiring freeze, it’s worse than the media reports. Moynihan:

A new OPM memo  also requires the creation of lists of federal employees still on their probationary period (usually 1 year) to be reported to OPM by January 24. This is because those officials do not have full civil service protections. The implication is that agencies will have to justify retaining those employees, or they will be fired. This is bad HR policy. The federal government has a bigger hiring than firing problem, and targeting the newest and youngest hires in an aging workforce is a terrible idea , unless the goal is simply to cut people. Which it is.

The hiring freeze may indicate a policy of cost-cutting for civil servants, but in other ways efficiency is clearly not a concern. The same OPM memo encourages agencies to use paid leave to remove employees they want to get out of the way or fire in the future.

There’s also this:

For political appointees, there is no limit on hiring. Another new OPM memo  removes the traditional cap on Schedule C appointees for 240 days. As a reminder, the US government has about 4,000 political appointee positions, about 1,300 of whom are Senate-confirmed. This change could see the number of non-Senate confirmed appointees increase significantly. It fits with the broader pattern of politicization.

The same memo also created a back-door path for Senate-confirmed appointees to join the agency in an “advisory or consultative capacity.”

[…]

This effectively diminishes advise and consent power of the Senate. It puts nominees in de facto acting capacity from Day 1 of the administration, even if they cannot formally occupy the position they are nominated for. It is also a response to the Senate doing a woeful job  in confirming less visible appointees in a timely fashion, or simply putting holds on appointees for reasons completely unrelated to the candidate. While this is an executive branch aggrandizement, the Senate asked for it by its incompetence and pettiness when it comes to the conformation process.

As to the telework order:

As I’ve noted before , I think this is a dumb, politics-of-resentment type of policy that Musk and Ramaswamy implied was there mainly to encourage people to quit. The federal government does not use telework at a different rate from the private sector, but it is now being told to give up on a tool that can help it hire and retain employees.

The process does allow for exemptions, and contracts with employees may make it difficult to extend this immediately or quickly, but the intent is clear. Trump also seeks to undermine collective bargaining rights, in a sprawling executive order  that undid many Biden initiatives, including on DEI.

Moynihan has quite a bit more, including an analysis of the backdoor method by which Trump has created “DOGE” by placing it inside the little-known US Digital Service.

Biden left Trump ‘inspirational’ message in ‘very nice’ letter, new president says

President Donald Trump on Tuesday described the letter former President Biden left him inside the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as “inspirational” and teased reporters that he may release the “very nice” note at some point.

Trump was asked about the letter, which he found inside the Resolute Desk on Monday with a little help from Fox News Senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy, during a press conference announcing a $500 billion investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure.

“It was a very nice letter,” Trump told reporters. “It was a little bit of an inspirational-type letter. Enjoy it, do a good job. Important, very important. How important the job is.”

The president added that he appreciated the letter so much that he may release it to the public.

TRUMP’S FBI OVERHAUL BEGINS AS ACTING DIRECTOR BRIAN DRISCOLL PUTS ‘UNTOUCHABLE’ FEDS ON NOTICE: FORMER AGENT

“It was a positive, for him, in writing it,” Trump continued. “I appreciated the letter.”

Trump found the letter – addressed to “47″ – after Doocy asked if President Biden left him a letter while he was signing a flurry of executive orders in the Oval Office on Monday in front of a gaggle of reporters.

“He may have. Don’t they leave it in the desk? I don’t know,” Trump told Doocy before discovering the white envelope. “Thank you, Peter. It could have been years before we found this thing.”

Trump had then teased reporters that they should read it together before pulling back the reigns. He said he’d open the letter later Monday night.

POLITICO EDITOR-IN-CHIEF CALLS TRUMP ‘GREATEST AMERICAN FIGURE OF HIS ERA’ DUE TO HIS INFLUENCE

The presidential tradition of leaving a letter to their successor began in 1989 when President Ronald Reagan left the White House after two terms in office, with former President George H. W. Bush taking over.

Bush continued the tradition despite losing the White House to former President Bill Clinton after just one term in office. The tradition has carried on to this day through Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Trump and Biden.

Biden, however, was the first president to find himself in the unique position of writing a letter to someone who is both his successor and the predecessor who left him a note four years earlier. Trump became the first president to serve nonconsecutive terms since Grover Cleveland in the late 1800s.

Biden has said Trump left him a “very generous letter,” but has so far declined to share the content of what Trump wrote, deeming it private.

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.

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It’s time to build America’s cyber-nuke. We desperately need a deterrent to stop wars before they start

American nuclear weapons, specifically the atomic bomb, brought World War II to a close. They then averted a hot war with the Soviet Union and bolstered decades of global stability. The decisive superweapons of the next great conflict will be digital and run on supercomputers (specifically specialized chips called “GPUs”), with the power to break codes, paralyze our enemies’ economies, and destroy their weapons from the inside. Just as America’s military needs the world’s best planes and ships, America’s military needs a state-of-the-art supercomputer to deter future conflicts before they begin. Our adversaries must understand that attacking the United States or our allies in Taiwan will place them in the crosshairs of the world’s most formidable cyberweapon and not prevent us from producing one. 

A strategic supercomputer saves lives and ends wars by powering futuristic technologies at scales and speeds never before possible. This means our military leaders can simulate battles before they happen to identify weaknesses and opportunities. Our frontline troops will enjoy a crushing informational advantage owed to systems sifting through data from thousands of satellites, drones, and sensors around the globe. Pro-Trump, Pro-America companies like Anduril and Palantir have already achieved multi-billion dollar valuations building AI-powered systems and software ranging from autonomous fighter aircraft to kamikaze drone swarms. 

Why is this kind of supercomputer such a powerful deterrent ? A country with this capability can outbuild, outthink, outmaneuver, and outlast its opponents in proportion to available computing power. AI both accelerates the development of new technologies and makes existing technologies run faster and better. A strategic supercomputer can build and run innovative AI cyberweapons while protecting American leadership in both industry and warfighting. 

DONALD TRUMP SWORN IN AS 47TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

In the interest of forthrightness, I should note that I am a serial founder whose mission to advance America’s technological dominance has led me to build Hydra Host, the Foundation of American Innovation, and Fabius Labs. Hydra Host provides data centers and AI innovators the GPUs and software they need to maintain American primacy. While I then have a personal interest in America scaling its AI and GPU dominance, I offer the following recommendation on behalf of my country’s global leadership and national security.

America is not the only country to have this idea. America’s allies in Europe have all begun building their own government supercomputer and AI programs. Most concerningly, China has targeted massive 50%+ year-over-year increases in computing power to catch up with the United States. China obscures the details of its most advanced supercomputers, and its secretive investments coincide with President Xi Jinping’s repeated threats to invade Taiwan, the West’s preeminent chip manufacturing partner and a stepping stone to the rest of the Pacific. 

Allowing China to catch up would not just be a disaster for Taiwan. It would be a disaster for the United States and the free world our military and nuclear capabilities have stewarded since World War II. American superweapons have prevented global communist tyranny once, and we must prepare for them to do it again. 

America elected President Trump to defend America while saving taxpayers money. We must then discuss why this is not only good defense policy but one of the best investments we can make overall.

Unlike most military hardware, supercomputers can be employed productively in peacetime, supporting critical government, industrial, and scientific functions. We spend billions replenishing our military armament every year, and unlike traditional military armament, GPUs offer immediate and enormous utility for critical civilian applications. 

STEVE BANNON WARNS OF WORLD CONFLICT THAT COULD BE ‘TRUMP’S VIETNAM’

We should not be afraid of obsolescence. The advantages of scale endure even as new technologies hit the market, meaning we can do more with a last-gen supercomputer than many last-gen weapons against a peer or near peer on the battlefield. More GPU computing power yields superior results, regardless of hardware generation—and far overshadowing any benefits of having no scale at all. Would we stop improving and replenishing our missiles if missile innovation took off? Free markets generate an unstoppable wave of innovation for us to either catch or spend the next century chasing.

Building and maintaining national supercomputer brings critical manufacturing capabilities and thousands of well-paying jobs home. A national supercomputer can subsidize the construction of domestic chip fabrication facilities through advance market commitments: the promise to buy a product once successfully developed. Such a program should have advance market commitments on domestically manufactured chips which meet the needs of America’s military objectives. 

The COVID-19 pandemic showed us that it is better to buy chips during a supply boom than at gouged prices when something breaks. If conflict arises in the Pacific, the global semiconductor supply chain will likely collapse, and we will need to buy the chips either way. 

FORMER SPACE FORCE COMMANDER NOMINATED TO SERVE AS AIR FORCE UNDERSECRETARY: PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP

The U.S. defense budget is around $800 billion, and only a small portion is required to build a dominant national security capability and American industrial Leviathan. This critical investment would cost less than 5% of the total military aid given to Ukraine and be roughly equivalent to the cost of 80 F-35 fighter jets, of which we already have about 630 and plan to procure around 1,800 more. 

Investment in a dedicated national defense supercomputer is investment in American reindustrialization and jobs, American security, and American resilience—and one we can’t afford not to make.

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Of course, possessing the world’s greatest supercomputer does not guarantee victory or nuclear-level deterrence on its own. Nuclear weapons and other next-gen platforms extend, but do not replace, our military’s full array of complementary capabilities and doctrine. 

Similarly, AI transforms and extends , but does not replace, the way human decision makers wage war. If we build our supercluster properly and with appropriate urgency, there will be a response, and human strategists will need to manage the arms race they have accelerated. Achieving nuclear-level deterrence requires exploiting similarly powerful software and the data, models, doctrine, diplomatic resources, and military infrastructure. 

Our government must possess the capacity and audacity to move forward on all of the above to build a comprehensive AI defense complex before a global adversary catches up. We must use our lead if we wish to keep it. 

The American military should be the world’s most innovative and agile defense force. Building a strategic supercomputer is both sensible defense policy and crucial industrial policy aligned with existing national semiconductor objectives. 

The new Trump administration, along with the Department of Defense and Congress, must work together to develop and fortify this new pillar of our economy, building our resilience against supply disruptions, bringing critical manufacturing closer to home, solidifying the U.S. as the leading authority in AI and GPUs, and granting the American people a key lever to shape the next era of this foundational technology. 

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Memo to President Trump: you are wrong to leave the World Health Organization. You should think again | Gordon Brown

Any funding disparities can be addressed, but another pandemic is coming – and we’ll need the WHO to help fight it

This week, in East Sussex, a case of mpox was announced , the sixth UK case since October. New cases have also been detected recently in France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Canada and the US as mpox spreads out of Africa. Also this week, Tanzania’s president confirmed an outbreak of Marburg , an Ebola-like virus, which the country’s health minister had previously denied, only after the World Health Organization (WHO) independently reported an outbreak of nine suspected cases and eight deaths.

These two new reports of infectious diseases, thousands of miles apart, emphasise why, if a World Health Organization did not exist, it would have to be created to identify and prevent the spread of infectious diseases worldwide.

Gordon Brown was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010

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Ana Navarro likens Snoop Dogg to ‘trained seal’ for performing at Trump inauguration festivities

“The View” co-host Anna Navarro compared Snoop Dogg to a “trained seal” because he performed at President Donald Trump’s inauguration festivities.

In the days before Trump was inaugurated on Monday , his supporters celebrated at several events across the nation’s capitol. One celebration was the Crypto Ball, which was hosted by incoming White House AI and “Crypto Czar” David Sacks, that featured a performance by Snoop Dogg. 

“The thing that really, I think, was spotlighting Snoop is because of the things that Snoop Dogg said ten days before the inaugural in 2017,” Navarro said. “And so look, if you opposed and stood up against Trump in 2017, but you were there now, if you spoke up against Trump January 7th, 2021, but you were there now applauding him like a trained seal… Donald Trump has not changed. You’ve changed.” 

SNOOP DOGG WOWS TRUMP INAUGURATION CRYPTO BALL WITH BOB MARLEY SONG

In January 2017, the rapper posted a video threatening to “roast the f—k” out of any “Uncle Tom a— n—a” who performed for Trump’s inauguration at the time. He also made a video mock-assassinating Trump and suggested calls to make America “great again” is a reference to a time period of segregation. 

Earlier, co-host Sunny Hostin played a clip of former Clinton White House aide Keith Boykin, where he had slammed artists performing during Trump’s inauguration. He argued Trump had “attacked Black people” during his time in office and suggested that they “dishonor those people when you go and perform for this man.”

Hostin argued Boykin’s comments were “really important,” and said Americans must remember who Trump truly is. 

Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin objected to artists being targeted for simply performing at a political event. 

SNOOP DOGG’S OLYMPIC GOLD: FROM ‘GIN & JUICE’ AND MARTHA STEWART TO VIRAL SENSATION

“I don’t come for the artists. It’s the same way I felt about Carrie Underwood. I think that people see it as part of American tradition to be part of this. They can issue statements if they want to clarify what their views are on Trump. I don’t like coming for the artists,” she said. “I think if you feel like people need to be boycotting Donald Trump, which I disagree with, I’d go to the politicians.”

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DAVE RAMSEY: Don’t wait on the Trump White House to fix your house. Do 5 things millionaires do

Change is in the air. A new year, a new president and a new moment for it to be your turn to win. I’ve spent the last 40 years studying wealthy, successful people and the principles that made them members of that club. This new day in America is going to be your best chance in a long time to apply those principles and live your dreams. 

While I am confident the new Trump administration will improve our economy, it will not make you personally wealthy or successful. The truth remains that what happens in your house, not what happens in the White House, has everything to do with your ability to win and live your dreams. Successful people will tell you the government takes much more than it gives. So, while you can be excited about the new administration’s approach to the economy, you cannot wait passively on the sidelines hoping President Trump will somehow make you wealthy. He won’t. It’s not his job. 

As a person of faith , I’m a big believer in prayer. The Bible is very clear that God does not financially bless the lazy, or the incompetent. Praying for your corn to grow while failing to plant any is not a biblical principle nor one of successful people. St. Augustine is quoted as saying, “Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you.” Proverbs 10:4 (ESV) says, “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.” My grandmother used say, “There’s great place to go when you’re broke … TO WORK!” God loves you, but He will not make you wealthy unless you follow His commonsense principles. 

DONALD TRUMP SWORN IN AS 47TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Knowing that the new administration and even God who loves you are not going to make you successful without your personal diligence and competence, then it’s up to you to take action. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. It’s time for a change.

Our company, Ramsey Solutions , did the largest study of millionaires ever done in America. The research methodology was airtight, and we had an outside firm ensure we didn’t have any confirmation bias or other issues with our process. The conclusions of this study are based on data, which makes them facts. So, if you disagree with the findings, you are what’s known as wrong.

I unpacked the white paper in my number one bestseller “Baby Steps Millionaires ,” and we discovered many things your common sense will tell you and very few things to confirm your childish emotions about what it means to be a millionaire. Eighty-nine percent of America’s millionaires are NOT millionaires because of an inheritance. You can take hope in that fact because it means YOU CAN build wealth and live your dreams. 

GOV. SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS CAN’T WAIT FOR TRUMP TO UNLEASH PROSPERITY IN THE STATES

Millionaires do drive used Toyotas, and they do live on a written plan for their money called a budget. Millionaires are generous. And their purchase patterns indicate they do very little to impress others. Their Instagram highlight reel would be exceedingly boring. They don’t care what other people think. They are not taking a poll. 

They are aimed at a goal of financial security and are willing to sacrifice to get there. They read more than they watch TV. They are mostly debt-free and pay off their homes on average in 11.2 years from the time they set their mind to build wealth. While people generally become millionaires at an average age of 50, we discovered a surprising number of young millionaires as well. They contribute to their 401(k)s in good mutual funds like it’s a religion. They agree on their goals with their spouse and work in unity, not separately. And both are emotional adults, no spoiled-child temper tantrums to distract them from their goal. 

They like their careers and don’t say, “Thank God it’s Friday.” They don’t say defeatist things like, “You’ll always have a car payment,” or “The little man can’t get ahead,” because they started with nothing—they are the little man! And they are proving every day that you can live on less than you make, and you can build wealth in America today. It takes them an average of 17 years from the time they start their plan to reach a net worth of $1 million. Most of the data sources we find indicate there are over 23 million millionaires in the United States today. 

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All this data tells us clearly that you have every reason to hope that you, too, can build a good level of wealth in our country today. And yet, normal in America is broke. In the most prosperous society in human history, people are making money and they’re broke. 

Fifty-five percent of people who have debt say they lose sleep over it. The average new car payment is over $700. Most people have had student loan debt so long they think it’s a pet. Credit card debt is over $1.14 trillion. The number one cause of divorce is money stress and money fights. Normal is making money and broke. Normal sucks. Time to change. Time for some new habits and principles. Time to try doing what millionaires do. Here are five things you can take right now.

You need a detailed, written plan for your monthly spending. Check out our EveryDollar budgeting app for help.

Your most powerful wealth-building tool is your income, so stop giving it to credit card and car companies in the form of monthly payments.

Pay cash. If you can’t pay for it with cash, you can’t afford it. You are not in Congress. You can’t spend more than you make and win.

Be generous. Be a good tipper. Help others.

Build an emergency fund because you will have emergencies, and they will become debt if you don’t. Invest in your Roth IRA or 401(k) in good mutual funds EVERY month.

You work too hard to be broke. Personal finance is 80% behavior and 20% head knowledge. I am positive the American Dream is not dead because I meet people just like you every day who have overcome unbelievable challenges to build wealth. It’s time for a change. 

Don’t wait on the White House to fix your house. Don’t wait on the sidelines of your own life any longer. 

You have every reason to have hope in—and work for—the American Dream.

Take Control of Your Money: Author Dave Ramsey invites you to join him, George Kamel, Rachel Cruze and Jade Warshaw for the free Take Control of Your Money livestream event January 23 at 7 p.m. CST. You’ll learn, step by step, how to do what millionaires do so you can stop living paycheck to paycheck, create breathing room in your budget and finally start building wealth. You work too hard to feel this broke. It’s time to take action!

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