Should you reveal your success, or hide it...?

Don,

You bring up a great point.

In order to fit into society, you need to just be getting by. If you do good, well you must have cheated someone and be made to pay.

I am a landlord and I would not dare go over to my tenants house in a nice car. That would only enrage them and make them think how I made my living off THEIR backs. It doesn't matter that I skrimped and saved to buy my rentals and that I spent a many weekends working on them. I slipped and fell on the sidewalk that I(the tenant) was supposed to shovel. Tim has a nice car lets sue him. I'm not done.

Lets move onto the other landlords. Look at that Tim with his ad in the newspaper, bench signs, news releases, flashy business cards, that he places all over the place. He must really be ripping off some poor old lady to get a properties so cheap. I think it is terrible what he does, he gives the rest of us HONEST landlords a bad name. You know what, I think I saw some trash on his property, I think I'll call the city. You know I'm not sure that he should be putting that bench sign (totally legal mind you) where he does, I'm going to complain. Also, let me complain to the newspaper because of his creative thinking, he is always the first ad in the Homes for Sale section. I don't like the fact that at our monthly landlord meetings, he places his "I BUY HOMES" business cards on the desks. That is not right. Who cares that he has paid his yearly dues to be at the meetings. He is not playing fair. Translation: I am mad at Tim because he is just plain more successful and/or creative then I am. Instead of trying to be more creative/successful myself, I'll try and make it hard on him. I will try and knock him down.

Thats how I see it. Now not every landlord is like that, but there are a fair number who think that way.

Tim