An American father-and-son team have put their thoughts to paper in a new book which lays out their principals for building family wealth.

 

　　CRI's Shen Ting has the details.

 

　　To construct a legacy that will last, you need to forget everything you think you know about what it means to be rich.

 

　　Bill Bonner is an American author of books and articles on economic and financial subjects. He wrote the book 'Family Fortune: How to Build Family Wealth and Hold on to It for 100 Years' based on his own experiences.

 

　　"I don't come from an old money family, my grandfather was in the coal business, and he lost all his money and went bankrupt in the great depression in the 1930s. So when I was growing up, we were very poor. I am like these people: the first generation wealth builders. I started out as a young man I just tried some ways to make money and I found out my business – publishing business which I like quite a bit. And I worked on it for a long time before I made any money."

 

　　Bill Bonner says when he was young; the city of Baltimore in the United States was extremely poor and run-down and therefore wanted to attract people and entrepreneurs. As a young entrepreneur, Bill went there with his staff and the city gave him an entire office building for one dollar. Bill capitalized on the deal and got two office buildings but quickly realized that the buildings were located in a very dangerous area.

 

　　Several years later, Bonner knew that he had made the right decision.

 

　　There is an old Chinese saying that 'great men's sons seldom do well'. Bonner says the major risk for family investors is his family heirs.

 

　　"The biggest threat; the heirs themselves: people. This is hard to deal with; we can think through money system, we can think through what we do about it. We can figure it out using our rational brains, but the heirs are another problem. Family wealth requires family. The person who makes the money is not always good at creating the kind of culture and the kind of personality that you need to hold onto it. That's why it's very important to have another person. Typically, it's the husband who makes the money and the wife who creates the family culture as capable of holding it together. "

 

　　Bonner says there is no secret for turning new money into old money; it's just something you have to work at. You start early; you work as hard as you can; you think about it; you and you make sure you work on the family side as well as the investment side.

 

　　Henry Cai, a financier, wrote the preface of the book. After reading it, Cai came to his own conclusion on the definition of property.

 

　　"I think the real treasure is the spiritual property, and we should turn the spiritual property into material property. That is the real definition of treasure for me."

 

　　For CRI, I am Shen Ting.