"Generational wealth."

It's a concept that feels European in nature, however, 250 years into American independence this ideal of, "generational wealth," is now becoming an American ideal as well. Yet, in previous centuries much of what inheritance has become today would be called, "succession." Whereby, the individual accumulation of assets prior to digitized banking and credit systems of the 21st century used to require a more PHYSICAL PRESENCE for successful, "inheritance," which in the past was more akin to royal, "succession."

Nevertheless, as our economy evolves from decade to decade... today's article is a personal reflection upon the topic of GENERATIONAL WEALTH along with a story about my Father's career in contrast to my own career thus far.

Where to begin?

Gustav and I believe Maggie Larsen, in Muskegon, Michigan,
around the year 1872.

In 1872, my Father's side of my family immigrated to Muskegon, Michigan from Sweden. But to put that into context... the state of Michigan became an official member of the United States in 1837 only 45 years prior. Furthermore, a majority of African American's were brought over to America in the 16 and 1700's vs Donald Trump who's family immigrated here in 1890. Nevertheless, my family has been in Michigan since virtually the conception of the state of Michigan though our family did not have any direct involvement in; colonization, the Civil War, the Revolutionary War or Canadian border disputes.

So my family immigrated to West Michigan in the 1870's from Sweden and thereafter my Grand-Father (*the 3rd generation of my family in the US) grew up in Detroit as a blue collar factory worker throughout the 1940's, 50's and 60's. In fact, before my Grandfather my, "great Grandfather," also worked for the auto company's as a visual engineer in the 1920's and 1930's. Furthermore, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that in some ways... our family is one of the first/founding families in the state of Michigan, since Michigan fell under European occupation in 1776. Nevertheless, prior to this time I can safely assume that my family had spent several centuries in England (*more than likely London) as well as; Sweden, Germany, Italy and Greece... throughout our lineage and possibly even Egypt before that, consistent with the nature of our species ongoing, "Western Diaspora."

But in certainty, "the Larsen family," was in Michigan in 1872, as evidenced by photography. Nevertheless, after that time my Grandfather worked for the auto company's in Detroit and for the last 150 years of this country's 250 year existence my family has dutifully paid taxes. Furthermore, after my Grandfather worked to build Detroit's auto industry he was laid off 4 years before receiving a pension and my Grandmother took a job further contributing to American society with the FBI as a, "phone relay-er," back when we needed those sorts of things.

Now, to continue my family legacy on my Father's side... my Father served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the Phillipines in 1973, 1 year after the end of the Vietnam War. Furthermore, this period of military service is widely regarded as one of the most, "hot," political moments in American history. Which means that after immigrating to Michigan my Grandfather helped to build the auto industry during it's conception and then my Dad served in the military shortly after the Vietnam War.

So from meager beginnings filled with; church-going, blue collar events and an overall, "Michigan mentality," for most of the 1900's... when does that change? And it did change after my Father, who was born in 1953, completed the Marine Corps in 1977. Whereby, after he completed his college degree at Western Michigan University in 1983 he found a very lucrative, "sales position," at an IBM store in 1985. Then by chance or by fate, by positioning or by desire, by charm or by race, by discipline or by folly, my Father was given a sales position selling, "personal computers," at the dawn of, "the computer age," and for 2000$ a-piece someone could purchase that 1980's machine equipped with an un-Earthly new product called, "DOS 1."

As a young child I remember my Dad tinkering with the, "black screen," on the early operating system. He never did learn much in the way of software... past the accounting spreadsheets but the item sold well in the 1980's and after a couple of good years in sales he and his partner purchased their own, "Inacomp store." At that time, "Incocamp," was a 3rd party distributor for IBM, a personal computer store which was highly lucrative in 1986. Or to put this moment into further context... my Father's yearly income looked something like this around that time;

This was followed by a career change where my Father then founded a, "floatation spa company," in 1993. Whereby, my Father left the very lucrative computer business and then he patented a relaxation device which he later had featured on the cover of the popular magazine, "Hamacher Schlemmer." Furthermore, similar devices are now profitable today, particularly in California, where patrons can rest inside of a plastic tank filled with salt water and listen to music through the water.

However, let me put this career decision into further perspective by saying that, "my Dad has a 900 chess rating on Chess.com which is in the bottom 25%." Which isn't to say that my 1500 and my Brother's 1700 are particularly great but...

So during that time my Father invested a bulk of his money into this new, "floatation spa company," and he failed to create a profit basically ever again despite doing business with the likes of; Billy Blanks, Wayne Fontes and Hammacher Schlemmer and that failure ran from 1992-1999. Furthermore, this period of my young life was very much like Will Smith and his child in the film, "The Pursuit Of Happiness," where my siblings and I frequently moved from apartment to apartment and my Dad was always chasing what he described as, "the big deal."

Nevertheless, today things are much more corporate and I don't even think that a sales staff-member could earn their way into ownership in such a short amount of time, today. However, that's what happened in 1985 and, "however you want to slice it," that experience was initially shocking for my family in a number of ways, especially witnessing someone with so very little class, elevated and praised financially.

Now this is where things take a mid tier / mild turn because at this juncture my Dad's batting .500 in business and maybe other wealthier aristocrats were thinking it in regards to my Father's business acumen but where does a position in leadership come from? Does it come from longevity? Does it come from paying taxes? Does it come from building larger companies like Ford or GM? Does your, "big break," present itself at the grass roots level? Or does it come solely from inherited proprietorship?

And those equations of social transcendence seem to lay somewhere between acquiring, "respect," and acquiring, "power," in America, today.

Yet, "financial equivalency," is almost a matter of the federal government these days, particularly as, "econommic fairness," and generational transcendence... seems like a never ending hot button topic in the modern age. So where did my family stand in 1995 in terms of both society and the federal government? Were we doing well? And in hindsight this was where the story changed. So upon achieving, "upper-class transcendence," at this point my Father had no other option but to throw his life away and to spiral down a dark path of alcoholism and deep seeded insecurity. And around 1995 my Father was equipped with our family name shining like un-touched credit card... so of course he filed a, "law suit," demeaning himself and our family name to the whole world's delight as he calimed to be an, "alcoholic," (*who everybody already knew couldn't handle 2m+ dollars). Whereby, he requested 5,000$ monthly compensation for what he called an alcohol induced, "handicap," in 1995. And this is a true story, he won the lawsuit and he was awarded 5,000$ a month for life from his health insurance company for alcoholism in 1995.

And I don't know who he sued or exactly the specifics surrounding the case, however, I do know that in the 1990's there was a brief period of time where, "alcoholism," became something that you could essentially sue over and claim as a disability. Where somehow my Father won a law-suit claiming that he had an, "alcoholism based disability," which incapacitated his ability to earn and required a 5,000$ monthly re-imbursement? What an era. Then in 1996 he took that 5,000$ monthly policy, insurance policy? Law suit? Whatever it was... and he cashed it in, in bulk, for 156k dollars and he then proceeded to invest that 150k into his, "floatation spa company," again.

Although, to be fair at this time... he was on the cover of a semi-popular magazine called Hammacher Schlemmer, an inventor's magazine with, "new aged gadgets," where he obtained a cover story for his, "floatation tank/spa," in 1996. And what a cool guy? And he got to meet Wayne Fontes (*Lions coach), Dennis Rodman, Billy Blanks and all sorts of people back then. Nevertheless, he cashes in his disability settlement for 150k dollars and he invests it into his floatation spa company and he gets things going a little bit again. There-after, however... in 1998 and now at the age of 43... my Dad starts panicking and he ditches his dream of becoming a big, "Whirlpool guy," and ironically the invention is now semi-popular in LA, today. Where I guess today it's called, "salt water float tank therapy."

However, at this point he quits the floatation spa business, he fails to replicate the success of his once glorious computer store and he then gets into Real Estate.

And this is again, where I just scratch my head...

So then his Real Estate career starts off with a handful of very legitimate deals. He meets with some old connections, he buys some, "call lists," and he sets up an office in the basement where he then starts a Real Estate company called, "Quest Financial," around the year 2000.

Whereby, initially this works out terrifically and the company does some deals here and there... 3% on a sale, 3% on a listing and there was some initial success in his transition to becoming a certified, Real Estate salesmen. However, at this point the industry kind of balloons and there's recession talks again and things get a little slimier and then home values/appraisal's go up and down and then the entire housing market starts to massively fluctuate up and down, nation-wide.

So at this point, Father... with a still somewhat CLEAN SHEET... in the way of our FAMILY NAME, "LARSEN," discovers that he can make a little bit more money somewhat unethically. And it's at this point around 2002... that he begins taking advantage of the fluctuating, "Detroit property market," which has been riddled with crime since the 1960's making each neighborhood individually difficult to appraise/value in terms of the quality of the property. And he takes the, "poverty situation in Detroit," and he capitalizes on that by purchasing 10-20 homes in Detroit, along with several business partners and he then appraises each of them for 100-120k dollars a-piece after purchasing them for 10-30k dollars a-piece. Whereby, again this is Detroit, Michigan which is one of the most crime riddled areas in the entire world. So then after appraising the homes for 4x there purchase price his company could then claim that the neighborhoods crime rate's had, "improved," making the home's more desirable, thus allowing my Father to BORROW 90% of the newly appraised value or 3x his initial investment, "for renovations." (And by the way, since 1991 he's telling me these story's as they occured. So as a child I was raised with a ton of information about, "doing business," as these things happened in the 1990's and 2000's, which is partially why I'm so independent myself, today.)

Whereby, at this point the money was often used for renovations on his 10-20 Detroit Real Estate holdings... but a large sum of it was also used for his personal expenses; 2 cars, an 1800 square foot home, a cat, trips to South America, etc etc.

And the way that he borrowed the money to purchase these home's initially... was by, "pumping his personal and business credit scores," by simply moving his money in and out of his LLC, to and from his personal accounts and back and forth again, in different increments of cash and then claiming those deposits as, "income." (*Which is blatent fraud that he committed, in my opinion.)

So he'd take 6,304$ or whatever from his LLC account and he'd put 2,042$ of of it into a personal account and start taking it out and redepositing it from one account to another. He'd take out 2,843$ and put in 1,024$ and then leave 4,000$ and 1,000$ or something of that nature and he would just keep moving the money in and out of his different accounts for freshly acquired, "deposit slips," to add to his personal and business credit through claimed income. Then he'd come back to the bank and put in 1,400$ of that SAME MONEY and take out 800$ of THAT SAME MONEY from the same 2 accounts and shift the money from his business accounts back and forth into his personal accounts, each time claiming that this SAME MONEY was NEW INCOME on his W2's / business credit report. So by essentially, "PUMPING HIS CREDIT SCORE," by moving money back and forth and claiming those deposits as income... he gave himself perfect personal and business credit and that gave him the ability to borrow as much money as he needed in, "flipping," these homes. Now, I consider this tactic to be, "fraud," however, as an LLC owner myself... I can attest that often times money does go back and forth and without proper checks and balances I believe that the bank is more at fault than my Father for not researching my Dad's income at that time. That's the RISK on a loan... they should've never loaned him the money! Or did they know? Or did they want my family to have money at that time? After all, how does Ford stay in power? By giving the weakest member of my family the only opportunity my family has ever had?

But my Dad had a 720 credit score and he could put the home's in his partner's name(s) and then they would get their favorite, "appraiser," to give them a favorable evaluation of the home's value and then they'd, "refinance," the mortgage for the home's 90% value and claim the renovation money as profits and they did this for 30-50 homes and claimed over 3-5m dollars in loans, as profits from 2001-2004. Then they'd take a majority of that loan money as, "profit," and put some amount of that back into renovations to cover their trail but ultimately they would fail to make the payments and allow the bank(s) to foreclose, usually after 13-15 months to make it, "look like," a legitimate foreclosure. Furthermore, my Dad is from inner city Detroit and he went to Osborne High School and I wonder if the bank was aware of that and allowed him to do this as a form of compensation for the degradation of the city? Who knows? Thanks again Ford...

And here's my next question, "is that fraud?" And I think that it is! Whereby, in my opinion this should be a jail-able offense! Now... my Dad is 71 years old today, however, this is incredulous in terms of macro-economics! And white collar crime is still crime in my opinion! Where even I, as a beneficiary, despise this type of business! But that brings me back to this concept of, "generational wealth," where no family ascends without wtinessing successes and failures and Shiela Ford just inherits her money 15 generations in a row. So there's a dispute here.

However, up until this point around 2003... my family had a spot-less family history with a near FOUNDING privilege in the US. Yea, I said it, "privilege," in the state of Michigan. However, does 1 family member's financial malfeasance sully an entire family's legacy? It surely does and it's unfortunate to say that this man who calls himself my Father has now filed bankruptcy on over 3 million dollars in corporate debt for which he will never re-pay, mostly stemming from Real Estate deals done between 2000-2005. But let me clear that ledger... because CiviliansNews.com and artificialintelligenceproject.com magically never get paid, do they? As I pay landlords 50% of my income... these days.

But how much of that fraud was his fault? And how much of that fraud was committed despite full knowledge of it on both Wall Street and within the federal government? He didn't really get away with that? Did he? And furthermore, after his, "alcoholism lawsuit," in the 1990's, why was this man consistently obtaining 20,000-100,000$ payments, routinely... from 1985-2005?

And furthermore... was that money all for selling computers? Or for his disabilities? Or was the federal government selling my future today and lining my parent's pockets back then for my future today? I wonder today... and in particular with the added motivation that many of our parent's feel even more entitled than I do, to live in their current regions. Whereby, did the government pay everybody in NYC and LA to allow them to stay in their home state's despite countless waves of immigration? Is that what happened back then? Or is that what's going on at the heart of politics today? And what about Greece and the UK? Was that political instability the real source of my Father's success early on?

Or was it another issue at the heart of my Father's success? And I honestly wonder? And for a number of different reasons but say that I was casted as a child actor in 1995... or what if Whirlpool had bought my Dad's spa company? Then he might've made 100m and not just 2-3 million. So did the government elect to pay my Father for his bad business dealings on purpose, to spite our families success later on? Which is one theory that I have, also. #FakeNews

Nevertheless, let's compare that to my career thus far... where since college, despite not enlisting in a war-time military, I've personally earned on average 21,000$ / per year from 2010-2023. Whereby, I'm working; manual labor jobs, coding Ai and writing this blog while boasting a Chess.com rating of nearly 1500, which is in the top 5% on Chess.com and 600 points better than my Father and I'm making 1/10th of the income that he made at this age despite being smarter and more disciplined than he was.

Now I work a day job and I own a SOFTWARE COMPANY called ArtificialintelligenceProject.com (founded in 2016) which may succeed later on but I see other individuals and other companies elevated in our economy sometimes with extravagant sums of money for doing half of what I do! Like how my dim whitted Father was somehow paid in 1994 to the detriment of others. So, now I wonder... why my company has thus far failed to heed recognition? Is that because of my Father's failures? Was this the plan all along in paying my Father back then? To short my success later on? And what's really going on here? Whereby, much like this blog itself, CiviliansNews.com, today, I also wonder how much NEPOTISM plays a role in financial transcendence? And how much money is a blog like CiviliansNews.com worth? Or an Ai start-up like ArtificialintelligenceProject.com if NOT owned by a Harvard aristocrat, with connections to similar corporate entities?

Whereby, how much did nepotism play a role in my Dad's success? Particularly with my Grandfather being laid off by the auto-makers in the 1960's and then my Father falling into seemingly random success in the 1980's? How much of that was luck? After the Marine Corps? And how much of that was by design? Was my family going to work for Ford forever? And when does it end?

And then today I wonder, "how much of my Father's success is now a burden to me?"

Whereby, his 2.5m in illegally acquired assets have pinned blame on me and shamed our family claims. Whereby, a Senate seat or a Governor-ship could've been attainable if our Father hadn't pissed away my family legacy. Yet, that can now be casted into eternal self-doubt with my Father's economic misdeeds. Nevertheless; how many other companies in America today... get away with similar economic mis-deeds? Filing massive bankruptcies on, "fraudulently acquired," assets? And then sometimes passing those fraudulent assets down to their kids! To which now I can proudly say that I was only the beneficiary of approximately 100,000$ during my Dad's entire career and I will inherit none of those fraudulently acquired assets. Whereby, today we now have a massive Civil Rights push, primarily based on WHITE GUILT and I can't help but remember the massive amounts of money that my Dad was SEEMINGLY GIVEN throguout; the 1980's, 1990's and 2000's... but was that by design? Paving the way for the nepotism and civil rights push that we're all experiencing today?

And am I to feel guilty for that 2.5 million dollars of, "success?" Of which I maybe saw 100,000$ from birth until present day. Whereby, the whole thing feels somewhat ironic today, as I routinely find myself now led to believe that I deserve to be treated as irrelevant due to classism from the past, when I stand in full agreement that people like my Father committed fraud and he should be jailed!

In fact, one of my Father's business partners was tried by the Department Of Justice (DOJ) and served 2 years in a federal prison, whereas, my Father avoided criminal charges due to a heart failure in 2005, which allowed him to file for bankruptcy. But how did this legend continue his career after that? Well, he then went on to borrow 250k dollars more in student loans from 2008-2013, in obtaining his Masters degree at Notre Dame University, at the age of 64, right as I graduated college.

Whereby, again, he borrowed 250k dollars more, thereafter, going back to school... and borrowing again in his 60's and it was at that point, when I got the vibe that the federal government was fully aware of his shady business dealings and somewhat supported him as a businessman, no different than some of NY's wealthiest Real Estate tycoons.

Where again, it became clear to me at that point that there was more to this after my Dad followed me to college (attending Notre Dame for religion) and after he borrowed 250k dollars more between 2008-2013. But particularly in terms of; my family name, our place in society, 100 years worth of our families taxes and the level of POWER that some NEPOTISM conveys within our society it's now clear to me that all of this isn't always what it seems financially. To which I stand eerily objective today. Whereby, I more often than not find myself to be the victim of such fraud and NEPOTISM today in the; Ai, music/acting and journalism fields. Whereas, other people seemingly now remind me of my Father with their, "happy go lucky success," compared to my business which is often times more deserving of success and yet, continues to be supported by my manual labor day jobs.

And to the extent that I wonder if my Dad was paid pre-emptively by the upper class, on purpose, now forcing a delay in my success 15 years later... #FakeNews? Whereby, there's definitely a lack of empathy for me in business... stemming from my Dad getting away with said, "fraud," throughout the 1980's, 1990's and 2000's. Which is oddly similar to the resentment that NEPO's face above me... is that a coincidence? Except I didn't inherit anything.

But also, "there is no punishment without guilt," and as I build my own small business today, I now wonder if my time will ever come?

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-William Larsen, Civilians News founder