Dealing with a negative friend

Hi:
Though I don't want to dump my friend because he has always been a very nice person, he has the tendency to be very negative to be around. Though I only see him a few times a year...

90% of the time, he complains about wanting a better life for himself and seems to have these big dreams and plans but they always seem to never work out for him. Yet, I never see him bother to make any sort of effort to make improvements along the way. Instead, he sits around and compares his life to others all the time and whine about not living in my area anymore. He also seems to make an excuse about everything.

For example, while visiting a few days ago, all he did was talk about wanting a new car whine about why he could not move back to my city because his car would not be good enough for city because it was too old and keep pointing out nice cars. He also talked about how it wasn't fair that his friends were doing so much better than he was. I just feel that if he has the money to rent a car, as he has in the past, he has the money to buy a used car in his area.

I also feel there are several things that he has not been honest with me about. For example, he keeps talking to me about working on this mathematical model that he has been trying to get right for this side project of his. Whenever I asked him about the model or the type of math he is good at, it's
"I don't know," "Umm, I am not really that good at it but I would like to be."

Finally, I told yesterday that I think it might be good for him to share his frustrations with a counselor which he made excuses about to. It was "I don't think a counselor is a good fit for me."