Student Question: Master, I’d like to understand how to grow personal wealth from an economics perspective.
Master Chi’s Response: Personal wealth primarily comes from two sources: wages and investment returns.
Wage income is determined by one’s output. A PhD, for example, might generate 100,000 yuan in output per year, while a programmer might generate 300,000. It naturally follows that the programmer earns several times more — and that is entirely as it should be.
Investment returns. A person’s investment returns depend on three closely interrelated factors: rate of return, risk, and liquidity. These directly shape your ultimate financial outcomes.
For this reason, we must pay close attention to the balance of supply and demand in the market — working toward a dynamic equilibrium among three parties: government, enterprises, and individuals.
The government’s primary role is to build national public goods, and to uphold the principles of fairness, justice, and transparency in doing so.
Enterprises seek to align with dominant industry players to establish market control — and through that, to sustain continuous profitability.
Individuals, while securing their wage income, should continually deepen their understanding of rate of return, risk, and liquidity — and put that understanding into practice to generate passive income.
Throughout this process, believe in yourself — and never stop learning.