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It would be impossible to accuse Clive Palmer of failing to dream big. He’s the Australian tycoon who’s behind a project that would see a replica of the Titanic built and put into service on the ocean.

The project was first announced in 2012. Recently, Clive Palmer disclosed that his Titanic project’s European headquarters would be located in Paris, so it would be relatively unaffected by Brexit.

No doubt a smart move, but the build-out of Titanic II has bigger problems than Brexit.

To begin with, Titanic 2 was supposed to be sailing by 2016. Clearly, that never happened. The project like the one before it has been fraught with problems. As it stands today, the Paris office that was just announced is one of the few things that Titanic II has going for it.

Despite the fact there’s no real construction happening at the moment, Clive Palmer said this about his project:

“You’ll see a lot of guys my age buying, building, and sailing boats… I’m building a bigger boat because I’ve got a bigger budget.”

Clive Palmer and His Big Boat

When the Titanic 2 was first announced, it had the support of Deltamarin and CSC Jinling Shipyard. Deltamarin is a legitimate ship-design company, and CSC Jinling Shipyard is a real shipbuilder in China. The two companies even signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and planned to “conduct preliminary technical studies.”

That was all way back in 2012. As time went by, things for the Titanic II project began to sink. In 2015, workers at CSC Jinling told Clive Palmer that nothing was happening, which is where the project is still today.

In the meantime, Clive Palmer decided to create his own Australian political party, called the Unified Australia Party (UAP). In truth, the UAP moniker had been used prior to 1945, before it was absorbed by the Labor Party.

Someone decided they didn’t like Mr. Palmer’s designs on a half-century-old political party’s abandoned name, and eventually, Clive Palmer settled on the name “Palmer United Party,” for his new life in Australian politics.

Making Australia Great

As the plans for his Titanic remake were further slumping into the ocean, Palmer was successfully elected to the Federal Parliament in Australia. Somewhat surprisingly, his new party was also able to attract other politicians, and three candidates from the Palmer United Party were elected to the Australian Parliament.

Clive Palmer made a big splash when he entered politics, but it all seemed to stop there. He was absent more than any other MP in the 44th Parliament, and according to media reports, he rarely left his Gold Coast mansion.

He may have been working on the Titanic II while away from the legislature, though there were no results to show for his efforts.

After he was soundly defeated in the next election, perhaps due to some unrealized repression relating to the Titanic II, Palmer announced that he would retire from politics.

That didn’t last long, though, and this year the former MP told Australia that he planned to re-enter the federal political game so that his party can “Make Australia Great.”

Clive Palmer Is into Dinosaurs Too

The Titanic 2 isn’t the only albatross hanging around Clive Palmer’s neck. He also attempted to create the world’s largest animatronic dinosaur park. This may have been another distraction that kept the mogul from his duties as an Australian MP.

Much like the Titanic II, his giant dino park is currently reported to be abandoned, though he claims that he uses it like President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

There is little evidence to corroborate his claims, and he may very well be riding around in his abandoned dinosaur park in a golf cart with the soundtrack to “Jurassic Park” playing on his smartphone.

While the actual construction on the Titanic II has yet to commence, Clive Palmer is said to be in possession of 3,000 sets of Titanic-themed flatware and cutlery.

The exact location of these eating utensils is another mystery, but he may be stashing them in the hollow body of a lifeless brontosaurus, as he waits for his fortunes to turn for the better once again.

Featured image from The Australian.

Many of his contemporaries would prefer to see him as a connoisseur in what happened to be his first source of passion. Right from his days at Tennessee Technical University, Jon Yarbrough combined his nous and entrepreneurial finesse into a trade.

Foosball to him was more than a leisure. He had a conceptual picture beyond the immediate gratification of owning a foosball table as a prized asset. As a student, he was reputed as an aficionado of foosball, and his clout soon earned him a deal with a local arcade in Cookeville.

He’d rent out his foosball table to the bar in agreement for a 50-50 profit ratio. Having latched onto the marketability of the niche, he soon purchased more foosball tables and pinball machines and rented to other arcades as well.

In 1991, he founded Video Gaming Technologies and created video games to suit the demand of tribal casinos. The proliferation of these casinos led to the boom of his company, and this was where he earned most of his fortune.

After successfully carving a niche for himself, he sold the business for $1.28 billion to Australian firm Aristocrat Leisure in October 2014 and delved into real estate, tech stocks, and other investments.

Jon Yarbrough Invests in Technology Companies

Jon Yarbrough sees tech stocks as the wisest investments anyone could delve into. His first stint was in 1987 when he invested $30,000 in Microsoft. He now has a net worth of $2.2 billion.

While sharing his views in an interview with Forbes, Yarbrough remarked on the phenomenal growth of his investments in Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple. The investments grew astronomically to $7 million during the dot-com bubble before losing about 80% of the fortune in the dot-com bust.

For Yarbrough, making investment decisions is more of a hobby than anything else. While many others take the Wall Street Journal as a business guide, Yarbrough reads it for the fun of it. He was, however, fortunate to have had his dad, a stock investor, hold his hands when he made his foray into tech stocks in 1986.

He got the basics on phantom stock investments in high school from him, and as they say, the rest is history.

At 61, Yarbrough is still willing to take risks and break new grounds in stock investments. He has been a staunch disciple of tech stocks as they make up 25% of his portfolio but remains open to investments in hedge funds, private equity, and lending funding.

Choosing tech stocks is easy for Yarbrough. The primary parameter he uses in choosing an investment is the company’s earnings to growth ratio. When a stock tends to grow fast with huge profit returns, he’s always willing to have a stake in them. 

Suffice it to say, he is not driven by the desire to acquire and sell them so quickly. He has been able to retain some of the stocks he acquired for three decades. He believes in long-term investments.

As for those willing to get started in investing, he proposes investments in the broad market exchange-traded fund but urges them to do it slowly over time.

“It can be discouraging if you put it all to work at once just before a market turndown.”

Indeed, with tech stocks taking a battering right now, one can only imagine how much of a dent it’s putting Jon Yarbrough’s wealth.

Featured image from Pilotonline.

Life is like a vacuum cleaner. Sometimes it sucks then it all turns to dust. Dyson electronics pioneer and vacuum cleaner aficionado, James Dyson, is setting up shop in Singapore to work on his new electronic car-making business–and is receiving some criticism in the process.

The serial entrepreneur and electronic appliance specialist publically backed the British Brexit vote but is now moving some of his operations to Asia instead of supporting British manufacturing.

Although the renowned inventor is taking some flack at the minute, his move from vacuum cleaners to electric cars is raising some proverbial eyebrows as well.

Changing Times for James Dyson

As any entrepreneur will tell you, sometimes you have to do something completely different and move with the times to be successful. And James Dyson knows all about success.

He is stated as having a net worth of $5.3 billion by Forbes and is currently #321 on their rich list.

Dyson vacuum cleaners became a massive hit across the globe in the 1990s and changed the way we cleaned our mite-infested carpets without using a hoover bag.

Housewives and husbands across the planet rejoiced as the increase in suction allowed them to understand and appreciate the true meaning of a clean carpet.

Yet Dyson made the announcement last year that he would be moving into the design and construction of electric cars. And also moving his operations to Singapore.

Increasing Popularity of Electric Cars

As the increasing popularity of electric cars rises year upon year as governments across the world scramble to phase out fossil fuel pollution, Dyson is now striving to become a player in an already competitive market. Just think Tesla Motors!

However, to become competitive amidst the current electric car market conditions, Dyson is setting up a plant in Singapore. Dyson’s chief executive Jim Rowan released a statement in regards to the Singapore move saying:

“The decision of where to make our car is complex, based on supply chains, access to markets and the availability of the expertise that will help us achieve our ambitions. Our existing footprint and team in Singapore, combined with the nation’s significant advanced manufacturing expertise, made it a frontrunner. Singapore also offers access to high-growth markets as well as an extensive supply chain and a highly-skilled workforce.”

Although James Dyson is currently receiving massive amounts of criticism back in the UK for backing the Brexit vote to leave the European Union and then opening the new plant in Singapore, he already has factories in Malaysia.

Dyson currently employs 12,000 people across the planet with 4,800 of them in Britain. James Dyson’s critics will simply have to suck it up and ask themselves how many people they employ in the UK.

Featured image by Royal Society uploader.