[antisthenes]

There was an interesting observation on the road a few years back.

I saw a Dominos delivery driver in a high end Jaguar. I can only presume it was a young person borrowing their parents' car to do deliveries as their summer job or whatnot. It was amusing to me (having an economics background), because I couldn't figure out what the lesson was being taught here.

Doing some back of napkin math, there was absolutely no way for this kid to generate enough money to make up for the cost of operating this car in a suburban neighborhood. Between the high maintenance cost and the low gas mileage of a luxury car, he was losing money every minute that the jag was being operated (barring, of course, some insane tips for big orders).

As far as real estate: yes, it doesn't take a financial genius to realize that renting income after all expenses is far lower than most people estimate and net profit hovers around $0-100 in vast majority of even profitable cases. Besides, you aren't the first person to think about investing in RE, so all the economic profit is generally already priced into the value of land, so you won't be able to get a bargain.

[sokoloff]

> I couldn't figure out what the lesson was being taught here.

I can easily see myself setting my kids up with something like that to teach them the value of time, structure, and work. It's no different to me than buying them a chemistry set, an Arduino, or making baking soda/vinegar volcanoes with them. I can even work through the math with them to show them that what they did was more expensive than me just handing them $5000 and telling them to watch TV all summer to save wear and tear on the car.

[antisthenes]

> I can even work through the math with them to show them that what they did was more expensive than me just handing them $5000 and telling them to watch TV all summer to save wear and tear on the car.

Who are you to say they wouldn't have found a better use of $5000 than blow it on video games and drugs during a summer? Presumably, if they already have good work ethic, they may come up with a business or a venture with that money that they wouldn't have otherwise, because they were delivering pizza for Dominos.

I would ask them to do the math of driving for Dominos BEFORE handing them a Jaguar, not after the summer has been spent.

[sokoloff]

> Who are you to say they wouldn't have found a better use of $5000

In this hypothetical future scenario: I am both a) the parent of a minor child and b) the guy with the $5000 and a Jaguar.