Smallville: Lex Luthor holds assets. Superman and the rest hold debt.

We are currently streaming the old TV show Smallville on Amazon Prime Video. It is about Clark Kent's (Superman) teenage years growing up in Smallville, Kansas. He is in high school and learning to deal with his superpowers. Clark's parents are farmers and struggle financially. They are always talking about debt and how they can qualify for a new loan, even though Clark does the work of at least five people on the farm. How can you be losing money if Superman is your employee? Something is seriously wrong with the business plan.

Lex Luthor's dad is a Billionaire with numerous businesses under his company LuthorCorp. He is always trying to explain to a young Lex the importance of growing their assets to expanding the family empire. LuthorCorp is a publicly traded company that is why Lex is always checking the stock price on his laptop. Their fertilizer plant in Smallville isn't profitable so he sends Lex there to cut costs to make it profitable. A plant losing money is a liability not an asset.

"The rich hold assets. The rest hold debt.'' -Garth Turner

Let's explain this. The most important lesson you'll learn from the popular "Rich Dad Poor Dad" book was seek to own more things that pay you each month. Seek to own less things that require a monthly payment from you.

Dividend paying stocks are assets that pay you every month. A new luxury car you bought using a massive loan is a liability that will suck hundreds to thousands of dollars every month in payments,insurance, gas and maintenance. Lex Luthor's fertilizer plant is an asset. Superman's family farm is liability.

The rich also don't leave large amounts of cash sitting in savings accounts. They invest and grow the money. The best way to do that is to take time to learn how to manage money and taking calculated risks.

In Smallville, Lana Lang approached Lex Luthor about investing in her business idea. She wanted to convert an old movie theatre, that Lex just purchased, into a popular coffee shop targeting youth, entertainment venue featuring live music and a one bedroom apartment upstairs. Lex made it clear that he would invest but Lana would do all the work to make it viable but he would get a large share of the profits. This proves again that Lex invests in assets.

Start small like buying a few shares in companies you know. Some shares are cheap as $1. You should know at a basic level how those companies make money because some companies don't. This is the best way to start learning how the stock market works.

You will either make money in the beginning or you will learn some valuable lessons for next time.