高築牆，廣積糧，緩稱王。相信大家在中學時代都會讀過吧。

在朱元璋稱帝之前，所奉行的策略是朱升提出的「高築牆、廣積糧、緩稱王」。高築牆是指加強軍事防備，鞏固後方；廣積糧是指發展經濟生產，儲備糧食，增強經濟實力；緩稱王則是指不要過早稱帝，以免樹敵過多。這三條建議極具戰略眼光，是朱元璋發展初期的指導思想。 

深深細味，這九字真言不論在商場上，還是在個人財務策劃上，也極具參考價值。

高築牆正是風險管理，你有為你的生意建立競爭者不能染指的市場嗎？你有為你的個人資產築起高牆嗎？

廣積糧正是儲蓄管理，你有為你的公司建立強勁的現金流嗎？你有為你自己建立穩定回報的長線儲蓄嗎？

緩稱王正是投資管理，在你進行高回報的投資前，有注意到以上兩點嗎？

Well, to begin with, this is not from a view of a financial planner, but two physicists.

To answer this question, we shall think of what is the definition of wealth. Suppose wealth is all the materialistic objects that you can own, from insurance cash value to real estate, MPF, vehicles, yacht and
mutual funds …etc

From the macroscopic view, there are two ways of flow of wealth in the society. The first one is transfer between different people. For example, one purchase a meal is to transfer a little bit wealth from the customers to the restaurant boss, or vice versa, depending on the value. There would be a change in wealth for individuals, but there is no change in wealth for the whole society.

The second one is investment. While transfer wont change the total wealth in whole society, investment does. If you invested in a mutual fund targeting China in the past 10 years, you had a 900% return which that generates the wealth effect. And this boost the whole wealth in the society as well as the individuals.

Two physicists Jean-Philippe Bouchaud and Marc Mezard based on the thought above developed a AI model for studying the why the 20/80 rule are so accurately happened no matter which civilization, culture, environment, such that always the few people controls the whole country wealth.

In this AI world, people would do transaction as well as investment. A further assumption has been made to make the situation more realistic is that, the value of wealth is relative to one’s wealth. That is, for a widow without much money, $10,000 is a huge burden while this is not a big deal for a financial planner who earns $1,000,000 per year. This leads to a behavior that, the richer the person is, the more willing he would do investment. (In reality, the poor generally has very few insurance, mutual funds or stocks)

As a result, the rich would spend more than the poor. Wealth tends to be evenly distributed under the AI model with millions of identical individual. (the only difference of starting is their wealth)
However, this force is significantly weaker than the other, investment. Through Jean and Marc gave the same investment technique to each individuals, some individual can earn more profit simply by luck, and thus, more capital for compounding!!

As Einstein said, compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe. The result of the AI model tends to be the reality — 20% of individuals controls 80% of total wealth.

The key is, a 10% return of $1,000,000 is significantly larger than a 10% return of $10,000. The earlier you start investing, the earlier you enjoy such a huge compounding effect, and this does not require extraordinary investment technique or skills to achieve. For succession, a $10,000 premium can generates over $1,000,000 liquid asset instantly for their families, which an investment experts cannot ever achieve. Such simple financial tools can make a big difference, provided that the initial capital is huge enough, or time is long enough. Without such perspective and reluctant to do financial arrangements lead to poor, and poor gets poorer.

This concludes that wealth cannot be evenly distributed by nature. Would government policy or social welfare change the poor to the rich? Unfortunately, the answer is no under this model since a forced distribution by government is only a transfer of wealth.

How to be an exceptional case such that can become richer and richer under this realistic model? Think about it!!!