Speaker 1: Welcome the Money and Wealth with John O'Bryant, a production
Speaker 1: of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is John O'Brien. This is Money and Wealth and
Speaker 1: the Black Effect Network. This is the trending topic for
Speaker 1: this week. What in the what HBCU FAMU who.
Speaker 2: Donation? You call it?
Speaker 1: That? Purported donations with two hundred and thirty seven million dollars,
Speaker 1: Florida A and M University is putting the pause on
Speaker 1: a purported largest donation to an HBCU in the history
Speaker 1: of America two hundred and thirty seven plus call it
Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty four rounded up million dollars donation
Speaker 1: by a guy that no one's ever heard from or
Speaker 1: heard of before, in a company no one's ever seen
Speaker 1: before or done business with before, Gregory Garami and his
Speaker 1: so called energy company in Texas, which I won't bother
Speaker 1: to name because it doesn't matter. It appears it doesn't
Speaker 1: really exist, not exists in literal sense, but doesn't exist
Speaker 1: in a sense that is not a traded company. It
Speaker 1: doesn't have a market cap, market capitalization that is recognized.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have audited financials, It does not have published
Speaker 1: income statements. It doesn't have unaudited financials. It does not
Speaker 1: have a board of directors who are accountable and responsible
Speaker 1: and are publicly known. It does not issue annual reports.
Speaker 1: It does not have a list of clients that can
Speaker 1: be verified and confirmed. The stock certificates or issue could
Speaker 1: be like tissue paper. I mean, anybody can say anything
Speaker 1: is worth it. So this is sad because it speaks
Speaker 1: to with the best of intentions of the leadership of FAMU.
Speaker 2: It speaks to our financial literacy.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the bad deals that we cut,
Speaker 1: meaning African black leaders in Africa with Chinese investors, which
Speaker 1: I'll deal with in a separate podcast episode. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you want me to cover something on this podcast,
Speaker 1: you can leave me a note on one of the
Speaker 1: social media platforms where you see promotions for the different
Speaker 1: podcast episodes. You leave me a note John Brian, please
Speaker 1: cover this, and I do watch the comments and I
Speaker 1: will take the best of ideas.
Speaker 2: And use them.
Speaker 1: So this FAMUE thing just breaks my heart because it
Speaker 1: does speak to our level of financial literacy, making matters worse.
Speaker 1: It appears a president when he received this supported purported
Speaker 1: donation from somebody nobody knew in the company that nobody
Speaker 1: had heard of. With the client list, it doesn't exist
Speaker 1: with the stock value, nobody can from. Who was financials
Speaker 1: of the company? Nobody's ever seen, and no one independent
Speaker 1: person is verified. When he got this purported donation and
Speaker 1: agreed to sign a non disclosure agreement, why would you
Speaker 1: ever do that with a donor unless you just don't
Speaker 1: tell anybody who the donation was from, not what the
Speaker 1: donation is. You can't even to your board of directors,
Speaker 1: big red flag board of trustees. In addition to that,
Speaker 1: the guy wrote a letter. The president of the university
Speaker 1: wrote a letter two days after he received this sham
Speaker 1: so called investment, wrote a letter to county governments, the
Speaker 1: local county governments where they were considering a fifteen million
Speaker 1: dollar additional allocation of funds to the university before I
Speaker 1: believe in athletic stadium. It already committed ten million, I believe,
Speaker 1: and there was another fifteen million being considered. And the
Speaker 1: president of the university wrote a letter and said two
Speaker 1: days or three he received this two hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: four million dollar piece of tissue paper, I mean purported
Speaker 1: investment of two hundred and thirty million dollars.
Speaker 2: He said, never mind.
Speaker 1: He told the local governments, I don't need you fifty
Speaker 1: million dollars. I'm cool. And because he thought this money
Speaker 1: was real and ex I think it was one hundred million.
Speaker 1: It was assigned to the Atlantic Program or something like that.
Speaker 1: So you know, whenever you make an emotional decision, it's
Speaker 1: going to be a bad one. You heard it here.
Speaker 1: Whenever you make an emotional decision, it's a bad decision.
Speaker 1: This was bad decision times two, actually times six, like
Speaker 1: almost everything went wrong here. If they called me, I
Speaker 1: would have told them that this smells. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying. I'm not giving shade to this, gentleman. I
Speaker 1: don't know them from a holding round or you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if from the stranger and I've seen
Speaker 1: in the freeway. I'm just telling you, based on the
Speaker 1: data that i'm looking at the information that i'm reviewing,
Speaker 1: and have heard that this smelled from day one. Nothing
Speaker 1: about this sound kosher. Nobody with this kind of money
Speaker 1: is off the grid unless it's inherited or it's criminal,
Speaker 1: and it's inherented. You can typically reverse engineer to where
Speaker 1: the inheritance comes from. If it's if it's criminal, you
Speaker 1: probably don't want the money anyway. But this has just
Speaker 1: made up like somebody created some stock certificates gave it
Speaker 1: some kind of a phantom value. I want to give
Speaker 1: my brother Roland Martin a lot of credit for tracking
Speaker 1: this story down and documented online and to go and
Speaker 1: watch a cold of Rollins videos in this. He's, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, he's not wrong. This jury is still out
Speaker 1: on all this. You cannot call the gentleman this greg
Speaker 1: Greek Garami. You can't call him anything at the moment
Speaker 1: because you don't know what he is.
Speaker 2: You don't know if.
Speaker 1: He's you know, legit illegit optimism in his head, a
Speaker 1: criminal or crook, mentally ill.
Speaker 2: And we don't know what he is. But what I
Speaker 2: know is.
Speaker 1: That he does not have He did not present the
Speaker 1: credentials that back up a two hundred and thirty seven
Speaker 1: to almost two hundred and thirty eight million dollar donation,
Speaker 1: In fact, not even a two dollars donation. The stoff
Speaker 1: was to he put up no cash, stock certific he
Speaker 1: put up with a marketing value of fifteen dollars or
Speaker 1: something per share, have no financial basis tied to them,
Speaker 1: nothing that anybody can confirm they not publicly traded it,
Speaker 1: which is the easiest way that is the market. Publicly
Speaker 1: traded is the stock market, the open market telling you
Speaker 1: what something's worth because we will boit and sold the
Speaker 1: stocks giving.
Speaker 2: It a value.
Speaker 1: This is a private company where somebody decided that something
Speaker 1: had a value and placed it on it, wrote it
Speaker 1: down on a piece of paper, and then tried to
Speaker 1: monetize that for reasons that are still strange to me.
Speaker 1: I can't figure why he would do this and gave
Speaker 1: this universe. He tried to give it to another college
Speaker 1: of the university. They rejected it. Unfortunately found you accepted
Speaker 1: it and didn't tell anybody until after the gave a
Speaker 1: commencement address, and they passed around this fake check and
Speaker 1: made all these headlines when maybe that's what the guy wanted,
Speaker 1: which means, if that's the case, he is mentally I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe he was trying to.
Speaker 1: Use the promotion and the fame from that to go
Speaker 1: close business fields with his non existent company that was
Speaker 1: doing you know, interesting non business in I believe, Texas
Speaker 1: with no and in the person he said he did
Speaker 1: business with, I'm told said she never worked for the company.
Speaker 1: She knew the guy, but was he claimed she was
Speaker 1: a co founder. And this whole thing to sneak distincts
Speaker 1: to high heaven. And I feel bad for the president
Speaker 1: and the boys, trustees and everybody at this HBCU, and
Speaker 1: this is going to unfortunately hurt all HBCUs.
Speaker 2: For a minute, it's.
Speaker 1: A little bit of a laughingstock moment, just so you
Speaker 1: feel better. I've been there, not like this, but a
Speaker 1: brother and I was in Africa with a bass reader
Speaker 1: young twenty years ago and a really really smart brother,
Speaker 1: much smarter than as Greg. Dude who was selling art
Speaker 1: sold me some art and it was a hotel where
Speaker 1: everybody was covered by security because the president of that Juria,
Speaker 1: was there, and I was so proud to be there,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to buy some African arts. I bought
Speaker 1: this art and I believe it was like nine hundred
Speaker 1: dollars or something. So I gave the guy a check
Speaker 1: back in the days when he wrote checks for nine
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, and he let me take the art. It
Speaker 1: was really really smart at him, and I put the
Speaker 1: art in my luggage and I brought that I took
Speaker 1: it home and about three weeks later this guy sends
Speaker 1: me an email. This is really really savvy. This con
Speaker 1: was off the chain savvy. Send me an email. Mister
Speaker 1: Bryant's so sorry. The check wouldn't go through my bank,
Speaker 1: wouldn't cash it. They said, I don't have proper RD.
Speaker 1: We go to the Western Union where we go to,
Speaker 1: you know, go and try and cash or someplace else. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know how to do that, and
Speaker 1: can you send me a wire instead? Well sure, so
Speaker 1: I go to wire him to my office and wire
Speaker 1: him nine hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: It was probably I think a little bit more than that,
Speaker 2: but I think it's twelvend dollars. But anyway, from saying
Speaker 2: this conversation say.
Speaker 1: Nine hundred dollars, and we wire him nine hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: this brilliant guy says, sorry, I can't receive it the
Speaker 1: Western Union where the company says, I don't have the
Speaker 1: proper ID. What do you mean that, they say, you know,
Speaker 1: the proper I D Let me talk to these people.
Speaker 1: Well no, let me see if I can work this out. Now.
Speaker 1: Mind you, this is now in the second week of
Speaker 1: the discussion with this guy. But this is three weeks
Speaker 1: after I've left We're on the fifth week of me
Speaker 1: being away. I already got the art, it's in my home.
Speaker 1: So this guy says, well, maybe you can wire it
Speaker 1: to my sister. Sure, so I try to wire them.
Speaker 1: By the way, the first wire did not go through,
Speaker 1: so I got a confirmation that I try to wire
Speaker 1: the money again.
Speaker 2: To his sister. Success. His sister received the money. He
Speaker 2: received the money. I'm so happy. I don't hear from
Speaker 2: him again. My assistant says, by way, did you ever
Speaker 2: cancel that shit? Nah?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, can't be went back to
Speaker 1: the bank check cash. This dude got me for two
Speaker 1: grand I think it was actually twelvehundred dollars, which he
Speaker 1: got me for twenty four hundred dollars. It was so smooth, though,
Speaker 1: I couldn't be mad at him. And this is back
Speaker 1: when twenty four dollars was a lot of money for me.
Speaker 1: I believe it was twelve hundred dollars was the original number,
Speaker 1: which means he got me twice. I mean that was
Speaker 1: everything for me. Not everything, but it was a lot
Speaker 1: of money for me, and I couldn't afford to lose it.
Speaker 1: But I couldn't be mad at him either, because this
Speaker 1: was brilliant. He got me and got me good. Well,
Speaker 1: Greg whatever, this dude's name is Garam did not get
Speaker 1: this university that good. He was not that smooth, this
Speaker 1: smart and that smart. This was just This is financial literacy.
Speaker 1: This is why I keep saying financial literacy is a
Speaker 1: civil rights issue of this generation. We got to know
Speaker 1: better so we can do better. This is John Hopebryant.
Speaker 1: This is the Money and Wealth Podcast. Go get your
Speaker 1: financial literacy and your civer rights.
Speaker 2: Hey, Hey, it's John Hope Bryant.
Speaker 1: And I am honored to cover a topic that's going
Speaker 1: to be quite explosive.
Speaker 2: I'm happy to light the.
Speaker 1: Fuse and this important conversation because we have to have it.
Speaker 1: This is something that we have to talk about. Particularly.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about racism in America. I'm talking about I'm
Speaker 1: talking about being Black in America. I'm talking about racism
Speaker 1: and being black in America and twenty twenty four important.
Speaker 2: I say twenty twenty four in particular.
Speaker 1: And is being African American specifically the end all be all.
Speaker 1: If you read the comments from a post this weekend
Speaker 1: that Breakfast Club put up a part of my interview
Speaker 1: where they put a provocative title, which is not what
Speaker 1: I said when I understand why they did it, and
Speaker 1: that wasn't inaccurate where I talk about they say what
Speaker 1: John Bryant says basically, you know, is racism something like racism?
Speaker 1: You know, can you overcome racism with banks or you know,
Speaker 1: accessing a mortgage something like that? Is it irrelevant? And
Speaker 1: of course that's not what was said in the interview.
Speaker 1: Of the interview was in spite of challenges? Is the
Speaker 1: color really green? In spite of challenge? Is a black
Speaker 1: and white racial issues? Are you saying, John, the color
Speaker 1: is really green? Back it up? And I did back
Speaker 1: it up. I like math as I love to quote.
Speaker 1: I know the hops and quote get credible credit is due.
Speaker 1: I like math because it doesn't have an opinion. So
Speaker 1: I did back it up. I backed up what I
Speaker 1: said about the colors really green with data and anybody
Speaker 1: watching the entire one hour interview on Breakfast Club with
Speaker 1: Charlemagne and you know the crew there, we'll see we
Speaker 1: cover it in great detail that in a range of
Speaker 1: other things. By the way, a teaser I'm going to
Speaker 1: be doing I covered diversity equity inclusion of that podcast,
Speaker 1: and I'm doing a series of the business plan of
Speaker 1: America on my podcast series and on my daily straight
Speaker 1: talk series on social media. But getting in detail on
Speaker 1: my podcast series, I'm gonna break down the entire future
Speaker 1: of diversity, equity, inclusion and how it is a business
Speaker 1: plan for America and why I think is going to
Speaker 1: shut everybody up. So this is a teaser alert letting
Speaker 1: all your friends know, tell them to subscribe to this
Speaker 1: podcast and follow the conversation and listen to an intelligent
Speaker 1: debate about the future of all of us. But back
Speaker 1: to this topic. If you looked at the comments, it
Speaker 1: was quite troubling because this one piece, clearly people didn't
Speaker 1: watch the whole podcast. Not important the comments themselves or
Speaker 1: don't bother me. Nothing bothers me. Mostly people were respectful
Speaker 1: and positive.
Speaker 2: By the way.
Speaker 1: What bothered me was how backwards some of our thinking is.
Speaker 1: And we're brilliant people. I went to out wave African Americans.
Speaker 1: We are brilliant, We are amazing. We've been doing so
Speaker 1: much with so little for so long. We can almost
Speaker 1: do anything with nothing right. You know, my grandmother was
Speaker 1: a domestic and had a shotgun shot in East Saint Louis.
Speaker 1: You know, my mother was early on domestic and worked
Speaker 1: an hourly job. My grandfather on my father's side was
Speaker 1: a sharecropper. My great grandfather, my second great grandfather, was
Speaker 1: fought in the Union cause the Black troops during the
Speaker 1: Emancipation Proclamation in Memphis, Tennessee. He was a slave. Clearly,
Speaker 1: I understand our challenges. I understand racism is real. I'm
Speaker 1: not debating any of that. The debate wasn't about racism, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I finally got into it. The debate was not
Speaker 1: about race. It was a I didn't mention racism. Was
Speaker 1: charlemagn didn' mission racism, dj nvy didn't meension racism. The
Speaker 1: issue was was perseverance and strategy and Israel way around
Speaker 1: issues of discrimination and race when they come up and
Speaker 1: are you do you think you're correct John in saying
Speaker 1: that green is a way around racism of blacks and brands,
Speaker 1: and I said, yes, if you get your credit score right,
Speaker 1: and you get it high enough, you can go over
Speaker 1: around and through any challenge that faces you.
Speaker 2: Your credit score, you adaptedly can't come of course.
Speaker 1: And I even went down to say that if you
Speaker 1: come to Operation and hope we will put up our
Speaker 1: balance sheet, that Operation hope, and if you follow our criteria,
Speaker 1: if the bank turns you down, we'll fund your loan.
Speaker 1: So it was not complicated, but it sparked. And I've
Speaker 1: already said, if you make a decision emotionally, it's going
Speaker 1: to be the wrong decision. So it sparked an emotional
Speaker 1: back and forth conversation that I happily engaged in on comments.
Speaker 1: I used comment responses sometimes to educate. It wasn't upsetting
Speaker 1: me at all, you know, I went out to my
Speaker 1: self esteem depends on somebody's acceptance of me. And I
Speaker 1: am the best selling author in economics now globally at
Speaker 1: the moment, number one on Amazon three categories, and before
Speaker 1: that published weekly in the USA. Today the book that
Speaker 1: just came out, Financial Literacy for All. You should all
Speaker 1: get a copy. We have built, you know, delivered for
Speaker 1: to have big dogs with the capital to underserved neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: black and brown neighborhoods and struggling white neighborhoods and Latino
Speaker 1: neighborhoods by the way, through operation Hope. I think I
Speaker 1: know a little bit about a capital. I know I'm
Speaker 1: the only nonprofit allowed to operate inside of a bank
Speaker 1: branch in U it's history. I think I know something
Speaker 1: about banking. I'm an advisor to federal regulators, banking regulators.
Speaker 2: I think I understand something. I know something about banking regulation.
Speaker 2: I think I know a little bit about history. I'm
Speaker 2: the only African.
Speaker 1: American, sorry, the only American citizen ever to trigger a
Speaker 1: renaming of the building on the White House campus, the
Speaker 1: Treasury Annicts Building now called the Freedoman's Bank Building, renamed
Speaker 1: in honor of former slaves who put every dollar they
Speaker 1: had in the bank that Abraham Lincoln stood up with
Speaker 1: freer after the Civil War. UH. And we went and
Speaker 1: got the our federal government secretary Jack lou to be specific,
Speaker 1: UH and my friend while the Adiyamo and others helped
Speaker 1: me to get the building renamed. This was during the
Speaker 1: Obama administration. It's now called the Freedoman's Bank Building. And
Speaker 1: we had Operation Oprink. We believe continuing that work today
Speaker 1: three hundred offices across the country. So there's my credibility.
Speaker 1: That and a bunch of others I've advised through US Presidence.
Speaker 1: I think I understand history. I understand the government, I
Speaker 1: understand banking, understand money, and I think I understand racism money.
Speaker 2: You know, I just said it had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with the conversation.
Speaker 1: The conversation was about how do you succeed irrespective of racism.
Speaker 1: But let's deal with this because I mean this was
Speaker 1: people were citing this lawsuit and that lawsuit in John,
Speaker 1: how do you say racism doesn't exist against black people?
Speaker 1: Because this happened to me subjective. That happened to me
Speaker 1: subjective and subjective, meaning it was about this subject It
Speaker 1: was about this person and this experience that they had,
Speaker 1: and their life experience is defined by that or this
Speaker 1: lawsuit with this company. And I'm going to break down
Speaker 1: banking on a separate podcast. I promise to do that
Speaker 1: and dedicate our white banks quote unquote white banks racist.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna enjoy doing that podcast, but I'm gonna stay
Speaker 1: focused on this issue today of racism and my belief
Speaker 1: that if you do a class, you get race for free.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 1: Yes, I said it, but I want you to just
Speaker 1: follow me on this and let's have an intelligent conversation.
Speaker 1: So again, the themes of the comments you go on
Speaker 1: my Instagram page in response to this particular post by
Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club was you know, racism is so bad
Speaker 1: against black people. How could you ever think about recommending
Speaker 1: that we access capital or race creative scores, or why
Speaker 1: should we have any hope? Essentially, why should we try anything? Essentially,
Speaker 1: because no matter how hard we try, no matter what
Speaker 1: we do, racism against black people and it's so bad
Speaker 1: and it's so document and John, you should know better.
Speaker 2: Then why shouldn't we ever try to do anything? But
Speaker 2: we're just gonna sit here.
Speaker 1: And complain about how bad things are because why try?
Speaker 1: We all know this system is stacked against us. If
Speaker 1: you're black, you've got no chance of succeeding in this country.
Speaker 1: When you get up in the morning, people are conspiring
Speaker 1: against you. John, you should know better. Again, look at
Speaker 1: this lawsuit, that lawsuit, This situation is racism real. Let
Speaker 1: me start here. Yes, racism is like rain is either
Speaker 1: fall in someplace or its gathering. So you might as
Speaker 1: well get out an umbrella and a color you're light
Speaker 1: and starts strolling through it because it's not going to change,
Speaker 1: so you must over a round and through it. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have to get to it. So it's racism real. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's real. Of course, my friend Stevie Wonder can see
Speaker 1: it's real. He won't mind me using making that phrase
Speaker 1: to see what there's a great sense of humor. But
Speaker 1: I mean the point is anybody can see that racism
Speaker 1: is real, and it's been real for a long time,
Speaker 1: not just for us, for a whole bunch of people.
Speaker 1: And what's the point. Now here's a second pivot on
Speaker 1: this conversation. Okay, racism is real? Then how do you
Speaker 1: how can you possibly say, John, that we should believe
Speaker 1: in this system when clearly racism against black people is
Speaker 1: uniform and we can't succeed no matter how hard we try.
Speaker 1: The first premise is that black is black. In other words,
Speaker 1: when you're black, you're off the grid economically, you're going
Speaker 1: to be discriminated against. That's right, right, No, it's not right.
Speaker 1: The Boston Globe did a report in concert with I believe.
Speaker 1: I know it was Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, but
Speaker 1: I think it was also a Duke University look it
Speaker 1: up front page.
Speaker 2: Several years ago.
Speaker 1: They did a study of net worth in Boston area
Speaker 1: and they found that white people had a net worth
Speaker 1: of you know, one hundred and some thousand dollars I recall,
Speaker 1: and that black Caribbean people had a networth of I
Speaker 1: believe it was twelve hundred dollars, give or take, and
Speaker 1: that African Americans in Boston had net worth of eight bucks.
Speaker 1: And it was so bad, yes, eight bucks, and it
Speaker 1: was so bad, it was so terrifying of a study
Speaker 1: that the headline in the Boston Globe actually said that
Speaker 1: the black networth in Boston was eight bucks.
Speaker 2: And this is not a typo.
Speaker 1: The headline literally said, this is not a typo as
Speaker 1: in topographical error, that the networth of African Americans was
Speaker 1: eight dollars, while the net worth of African Caribbeans, hello,
Speaker 1: they're black, it was twelve hundred dollars. Now, the networth
Speaker 1: of whites was you know, multiple times that of over
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: So clearly there's disparities there.
Speaker 1: But if all black people were in the same bucket,
Speaker 1: everybody would have a networth of either twelve hundred dollars
Speaker 1: in this one example or eight bucks.
Speaker 2: But clearly there is a difference.
Speaker 1: I said in another podcast episode that and I've been
Speaker 1: one hundred countries, I've been to almost half of all
Speaker 1: African countries. I've been to a great deal of the
Speaker 1: Caribbean I've said that, and this is a generalization, and
Speaker 1: this is what if people want to argue with me,
Speaker 1: I guess you can argue about this point. The rest
Speaker 1: of it is literally fact based and non refutable. Anybody
Speaker 1: likes statistics, facts and data. But this is just my opinion.
Speaker 1: But I don't think it's off the mark. If you're
Speaker 1: in Africa the Caribbean, you tend to have high self
Speaker 1: esteem in lower levels of confidence. High self esteem because
Speaker 1: you grew up well, normal mother and father. Generally speaking,
Speaker 1: you see the dentists, who's black, what looks like you.
Speaker 1: You see the architect who's black, the lawyer who's black,
Speaker 1: the mayor is black. The police who are protecting you,
Speaker 1: and the police were abusing you all black, So it's
Speaker 1: sort of and you weren't dealing with slavery for the
Speaker 1: majority of your ancestral life. It was a short period
Speaker 1: of time, but it went away. So I'm to America
Speaker 1: with high self esteem. You esteem yourself, you love yourself,
Speaker 1: but you have high low levels of confidence because you're
Speaker 1: not quite sure you can succeed even though you're really
Speaker 1: smart in a leading market economy, because you come from
Speaker 1: someplace that may be you know, several steps behind the
Speaker 1: best economies, the bigger economies in the world, but over time,
Speaker 1: your confidence increases. Confidence is based on confidence applied in
Speaker 1: the market economy. In this example, Africa is the same thing.
Speaker 1: Africans and African Caribbeans tend to have high self esteem
Speaker 1: and low levels of confidence or lower levels of confidence
Speaker 1: self African Americans tend to have high levels of confidence
Speaker 1: and lower levels of self esteem. This is why it's
Speaker 1: This gets into why we fight with each other. By
Speaker 1: the way, if I don't like me, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: like you. If I don't feel good about me, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna feel good about you. I don't respect me.
Speaker 1: I don't have a clue how to respect you. If
Speaker 1: I don't love me, I have no idea how to
Speaker 1: love you. I don't have a purpose in my life.
Speaker 1: Make your life a living hell. Whatever goes around comes around.
Speaker 1: But I've gotten too farlane. We come back, so we
Speaker 1: have higher confidence because we're competent and we've applied that
Speaker 1: confidence or that competence.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: In a market economy, the biggest economy in the world,
Speaker 1: the United States of America, we have killed it. In
Speaker 1: professional sports, the arts, entertainment, music, c faith, religion, politics,
Speaker 1: public service, government rules are published, are playing through this level.
Speaker 1: We are extraordinarily smart. We hustle, we work hard, We're
Speaker 1: hyper intelligent. We're hardworking. We succeeded. That competence created success
Speaker 1: and gave us confidence because we've succeeded in the largest
Speaker 1: economy in the world. But our history of being enslaved
Speaker 1: and dealt with with discrimination in jim Crow for most
Speaker 1: of our existence in this country, more than three hundred years,
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty years, give or take, has to
Speaker 1: damn which our self esteem. That's why you have African
Speaker 1: American ghettos in America. You don't have African ghettos in America.
Speaker 1: You don't have African Caribbean ghettos in America. I know
Speaker 1: this is getting deep in off the topic. I'm going
Speaker 1: to get back to the economics here in the moment.
Speaker 1: It's a very powerful statement. If I want to lay
Speaker 1: the groundwork, we're gonna have a conversation about this. But again,
Speaker 1: you don't see African Ghaneian ghettos in America. I don't
Speaker 1: mean where African Ghaneans live. I don't remember where I'm
Speaker 1: saying where African. Jamaicans live in a community. Are African,
Speaker 1: Zimbabweans are African, Nigerians are African.
Speaker 2: You know Brazilians. Did you get the point?
Speaker 1: They live in communities, just like everybody lives in communities,
Speaker 1: but they don't have ghettos.
Speaker 2: You have African American ghettos in America. Hello.
Speaker 1: Because they depressed our spirit and repressed our ambition and
Speaker 1: aspiration and tried to break us as human beings. So
Speaker 1: they just wanted this to be a human machinery, human doings,
Speaker 1: not human beings. And mindset matters, as you heard me say.
Speaker 1: I've got a book called the Memo I've got that
Speaker 1: It tries to work on your mindset. I've got the
Speaker 1: book up from nothing, the five pillars of success, your mindset,
Speaker 1: your your you know is a surviving mindset? Is that
Speaker 1: the writing of mindsets are winning mindset, Towny, many of
Speaker 1: us are in a surviving mindset.
Speaker 2: We're experts in.
Speaker 1: What we're against, racism by discrimination, not what we're for. Hello,
Speaker 1: So we double down on this trauma, this PTSD that
Speaker 1: overtakes us. And if you whether you believe you can
Speaker 1: or whether you believe you can't, you're absolutely right. Is
Speaker 1: the glass half full or is it half inb depends
Speaker 1: who's looking at the glass. So basiar dger Young would say,
Speaker 1: to live in a system of free enterprise, he's on
Speaker 1: the balcony with doctor King when he was assassinated.
Speaker 2: To live in the system of.
Speaker 1: Free enterprise and not to understand the rules of free
Speaker 1: enterprise must be the very definition of slavery. And that's
Speaker 1: why I connect this with credit scores. Uh, And that's
Speaker 1: why I said that Charlemagne show Breakfast Club, get your
Speaker 1: critical above seven hundred. My mother's credit score was eight
Speaker 1: fifty four when she first when she last access credit.
Speaker 2: People were even.
Speaker 1: Arguing, being about that, Oh man, that your mother's credit
Speaker 1: score wasn't eight fifty four. It doesn't even go beyond
Speaker 1: eight point fifty. See, gotcha? I'm like, hello, My mother
Speaker 1: last access credit in nineteen twenty, nineteen twenty eighteen or thereabouts,
Speaker 1: maybe even before that, her credit score was fifty four.
Speaker 2: It was a vantage score.
Speaker 1: Hello, Bichael also went up to nine hundred, and vanta
Speaker 1: score went up to nine hundred. They changed it in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty during the pandemic. But why is this an argument?
Speaker 1: Why are we arguing? Why were re arranging the deck
Speaker 1: chairs and the Titanic the ship is sinking and we're
Speaker 1: picking drapes. Why must you convince me that I'm wrong?
Speaker 1: Why must you make me wrong? What's your point? My
Speaker 1: mother's credit score? God addressed her. So Winnia Smith was
Speaker 1: eight fifty four. Why would I lie about that? She
Speaker 1: had an hourly income. She made fifteen to eighteen dollars
Speaker 1: an hour at McDonald Dougla's aircraft, worked there for thirty
Speaker 1: two years, bought one home and comped in one five
Speaker 1: five oh too South frankly, a broken marriage over money
Speaker 1: with my dad, Johnny Smith, who worked very hard but
Speaker 1: was not very financially literate, and so on and so forth,
Speaker 1: And tell that story in another podcast episode. And my
Speaker 1: point was, I can relate to the struggle and the
Speaker 1: hustle and the challenges. And we came and we had
Speaker 1: to live with people and all that stuff. And my
Speaker 1: mother bought and sold seven homes and built a million
Speaker 1: dollar networks when she passed away September tenth, twenty and
Speaker 1: twenty three.
Speaker 2: Well would I lie about that? That's crazy?
Speaker 1: Just takes the story as a source of aspiration, applaud
Speaker 1: it and try to replicate it. But then folks undermining
Speaker 1: that story. No, man, that didn't happen, and John don't understand,
Speaker 1: and what the and then my mother they bought and
Speaker 1: sold seven homes. I owned seven hundred through the Promise
Speaker 1: Homes Company I, and it was on government assistance per se.
Speaker 1: In other words, there was no government program I used.
Speaker 1: I I was financially in literally access capital the market economy.
Speaker 1: I mastered the game of capitalism. So my grandmother was
Speaker 1: owned the shotgun check. My great grandmother on my mother's
Speaker 1: side was a slave. My mother owned seven homes with
Speaker 1: a high school education, and I owned seven hundred and
Speaker 1: the largest minority owner of single family rental homes in America.
Speaker 1: And I access the credit markets and got prime rates
Speaker 1: and ultimately got non recourse debts. I'll cover terms of loans,
Speaker 1: debts and financial instruments in another podcast, but non recourse
Speaker 1: debt means, in this Triger example, not personally guaranteed, institutionally guaranteed.
Speaker 1: So I became an institutional borrower. And I'm from the
Speaker 1: hood less of my check. I'm black. So people are
Speaker 1: telling me this is not possible. But not only did
Speaker 1: I do it for myself and did my mother do it.
Speaker 1: But we've done it for four billion dollars worth of capital.
Speaker 1: We deployed two people of color and struggling people everywhere
Speaker 1: clean non blacks and browns meaning poor white suit which
Speaker 1: is the largest population of poverty in America.
Speaker 2: By the way, I'll get to that in a moment.
Speaker 1: Through Operation Hope by doing the same thing I'm saying,
Speaker 1: raising credit scores, lowering dead increasing savings, making you bankable.
Speaker 1: So your color is not black or white, it's green,
Speaker 1: so we can get you approved. But these arguments were almost,
Speaker 1: like again, traumatic because they could not accept a different
Speaker 1: narrative than the one they had in their head. That's
Speaker 1: modern day slavery is mindset, crushed, mindset, a cynical mindset.
Speaker 1: Don't be skeptical, but don't be cynical, because when you're cynical,
Speaker 1: that means you have no hope that they're Andrew Young quote. So,
Speaker 1: as Malcolm X said, we've been bamboozo we've been tricked,
Speaker 1: We've been fooled.
Speaker 2: Now here's the data.
Speaker 1: Here's a drop the mic of this podcast for those
Speaker 1: who say still saying listening to this, saying I love
Speaker 1: what John Bryan says, and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But you know, I just can't buy this. This is
Speaker 1: not true. Racism is so bad that why should I
Speaker 1: have hope. Here's the data. Friend of mine sent me
Speaker 1: this graph and it's very powerful. Actually, i'll tell you
Speaker 1: what the friend was. That's a great guy named Charlemagne,
Speaker 1: who I think is underrated as an intellect, an intellectual.
Speaker 1: He sent me this graph. Here you go. This just
Speaker 1: confirms what I've been saying, income by ethnicity, medium household
Speaker 1: income by ethnicity in the United States of America. Okay,
Speaker 1: so here we go Indian Americans, not white people. By
Speaker 1: the way, that's not a racial comment. It's just that
Speaker 1: people say it's white and it's black, like white people
Speaker 1: are rich and white white people are poor. White people
Speaker 1: are elitists and where, and they're repressively into black people
Speaker 1: who are being oppressed and where you know they got
Speaker 1: a foot an whatever the phrase is, right, So I
Speaker 1: want you to write this down, have this conversation with people.
Speaker 1: Let them repeat this podcast in a conversation. Have a
Speaker 1: weekly conversation with your posse in your neighborhood, and go
Speaker 1: to the barber shop, open this up, play it for them.
Speaker 1: Let's have a conversation about what's the game here, because
Speaker 1: I really believe slavery was actually about money, not repressing
Speaker 1: black people. It's about bad capitalism. There's good capitalism and
Speaker 1: bad capitalism. Good capitalism is where I benefit and you
Speaker 1: benefit more. Bad capitalism is where I benefit and you
Speaker 1: pay a price for it. Here's the large economy in
Speaker 1: the world. This is the United States of America. Please listen.
Speaker 1: Income by ethnicity in this country. Indian Americans one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty two thousand, three hundred and forty one dollars.
Speaker 2: Indians are discriminated against. Maybe not as bad as African Americans,
Speaker 2: but they have been.
Speaker 1: Filipino American one hundred and nine thousand, ninety dollars a year.
Speaker 1: This is everybody. Now, you don't seen me, you've heard
Speaker 1: white American. That's why I keep saying the business plan
Speaker 1: for America. This country needs everybody to succeed to continue
Speaker 1: to be the biggest economy in the world. Asian American
Speaker 1: one hundred and six thousand, nine hundred and fifty four.
Speaker 1: Chinese American, which is different from Asian American by the way,
Speaker 1: one hundred and one thousand, seven undred and twenty eight.
Speaker 1: Russian American ninety eight thousand, nine hundred and forty six
Speaker 1: dollars a year, European American. Okay, here we go. Caucasians.
Speaker 1: So now you've got somebody to pick on. Maybe they're
Speaker 1: in ninety six thousand, seven hundred and forty five dollars.
Speaker 2: But they are fifth on this list. There was a
Speaker 2: time when there was just them.
Speaker 1: And I keep saying there's not enough college educated, successful
Speaker 1: white man to grow GDP gross domestic product for this
Speaker 1: country for the next thirty years. It's not a racial comment,
Speaker 1: it's just math. Go to LinkedIn and read my business
Speaker 1: plan for America and again you'll see what I'm saying
Speaker 1: that this country, for the first time in the history
Speaker 1: of God, has a sense of humor. If you want
Speaker 1: to make God lab tell me your plan, you're racist.
Speaker 1: Racism is bad for business. The lowest credit score state
Speaker 1: in America is Mississippi. The least diverse promoting Satan the
Speaker 1: country probably is Mississippi. They're still arguing about whether they
Speaker 1: want to take down the Confederate flag or something.
Speaker 2: Again, so it's just crazy discussions. Right, I'm not judging somebody.
Speaker 2: I'm saying the decision making is bad. I'm not judging
Speaker 2: as a person. I'm saying your decision making is antiquated,
Speaker 2: is bad.
Speaker 1: That diverse and inclusive economies are growing economies in America
Speaker 1: is the most diverse place in the world, one of
Speaker 1: the most It is the biggest economy in the world. Okay,
Speaker 1: back to the data, so okay, in nineteen fifty, America
Speaker 1: was one hundred woman, ninety percent white. Nineteen fifty, nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five. That's not the reality today. So it was
Speaker 1: racism the biggest issue in nineteen fifty probably are one
Speaker 1: of the biggest issues. And Jim Crow certainly would suggest
Speaker 1: that in the early twentieth century it would slam the
Speaker 1: door on any prosperity. Simply what happened in Tosa, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: where they burned down a whole city because people became
Speaker 1: prosperous and with a threat, was absolutely a shut.
Speaker 2: Down based on race. What happened.
Speaker 1: After reconstruction or during reconstruction, after Lincoln's assassination, shut down
Speaker 1: the Freemans Bay and all the progress of those becoming
Speaker 1: black elected officials, et cetera, et cetera, and the reversal
Speaker 1: of forty years in the Meal failed Action fifteen that
Speaker 1: was clearly white racist forces, racially motivated forces, or black control.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, white control. Sorry I say black white controlling
Speaker 1: interest because they are again poor whites too at the
Speaker 1: same time, So I'll.
Speaker 2: Get to that in a minute.
Speaker 1: Who saw black majorities as a threat, not because first
Speaker 1: and foremost because of race, was because they wanted to
Speaker 1: keep the wealth and the power and the money for themselves,
Speaker 1: and they didn't want other folks out voting them, out
Speaker 1: numbering them and out smart them and outthinking them and
Speaker 1: out doing them. So keep them, keep them back, keep
Speaker 1: them down, don't educate them, don't let them farm proper families,
Speaker 1: don't let them understand financial litter to see the freedoms bank,
Speaker 1: don't give them, let them have rebuild or have self
Speaker 1: esteem and confidence, don't have them have proper role models,
Speaker 1: and then blame failure their own failure on them. So, yes,
Speaker 1: that was a business plan for a long time. But
Speaker 1: this is twenty twenty four. I'm grading your software over
Speaker 1: the round and through it. We're gonna get to it.
Speaker 1: Back to the example. I actually think COVID was the
Speaker 1: Noah's Art moment. God said, Okay, knock it off, everybody.
Speaker 1: You guys have gone a bridge too far with all
Speaker 1: this messiness, craziness. Let me get you guys refocused and
Speaker 1: reset everything. And within a year you had the largest
Speaker 1: pandemic since the Spanish flu one hundred and twenty five
Speaker 1: years ago. You had a pointed year old reckoning of
Speaker 1: social justice for black America George Floyd, where everybody's watching
Speaker 1: TV because of COVID the news. Otherwise we wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been all watching the news black, white, rich, poor Republican Democrat,
Speaker 1: oh and young. And then you had an attack on
Speaker 1: our capital, all in the same year, and it reset
Speaker 1: everything so that we might grow through legitimate's suffering. Back
Speaker 1: to the examples again, Indian Americans number one, Filipino Americans
Speaker 1: number two. That's one hundred and fifty two thousand, one
Speaker 1: hundred and nine thousand a year, respectively of income. Number three,
Speaker 1: Asian American one hundred and six thousand, Chinese American one
Speaker 1: hundred and one thousand, Russian Americans ninety eight thousand, European
Speaker 1: Americans ninety six thousand, seventy forty five dollars a year.
Speaker 1: Australian America is ninety five thousand dollars a year. Japanese
Speaker 1: Americans ninety four thousand, three hundred and nineteen dollars a year,
Speaker 1: British Americans ninety thousand, eight hundred and nine dollars. To
Speaker 1: see that's different from European Americans. In case that you
Speaker 1: want to start getting real specific, all right, and I'll
Speaker 1: explained why this is different. In the second Italian Americans
Speaker 1: ninety thousand and forty eighty seven. You want to see
Speaker 1: some people who are discriminated against, go back to the
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds and see how Italians were treated.
Speaker 2: They were treating horrible in this country. Horrible.
Speaker 1: In fact, they were treated in many cases similar to blacks.
Speaker 1: German Americans eighty three thousand, nine hundred and eighty nine
Speaker 1: dollars a year. Canadian Americans eighty two thousand.
Speaker 2: They're white. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm not giving you the exact numbers of each of these.
Speaker 1: I'm giving you rounding it out in some cases, but
Speaker 1: it's eighty thousand, five hundred and twenty one dollars Comadian Americans,
Speaker 1: White American hello, seventy nine thousand, nine hundred and thirty three.
Speaker 1: It will be interesting to find out what describes a
Speaker 1: white American versus European American. Probably European American somebody who
Speaker 1: came here from Europe. So white Americans are actually in
Speaker 1: the middle of this graph. Now watch this. White Americans
Speaker 1: seventy nine thousand, seven nine hundred and thirty three dollars.
Speaker 1: Nigerian Americans seventy eight thousand and five dollars a year
Speaker 1: right next to white American.
Speaker 2: Did you get that?
Speaker 1: Brazilian Americans seventy three thousand, two hundred and eighty five
Speaker 1: dollars a year. Mexican American sixty six thousand, forta eighty
Speaker 1: one dollars a year. Yes, Mexican Americans. Everybody's talking mess
Speaker 1: about the folks who came here honestly got their credentials
Speaker 1: and worked hard or making sixty six thousand for to
Speaker 1: eighty one dollars a year for their median household income
Speaker 1: and contributing Hispanic Latin American sixty five thousand, hundred eighty
Speaker 1: two dollars a year, the average American sixty three thousand,
Speaker 1: eight hundred and twenty two. I guess if you average
Speaker 1: all everybody out on a graph, Native Americans fifty eight thousand,
Speaker 1: eighty two dollars. Hello, Hold on, African Americans fifty one thousand,
Speaker 1: three hundred and seventy four dollars a year. That's the
Speaker 1: end of the graph. Did you get it? That then
Speaker 1: aligns with what I just told you about Boston, and
Speaker 1: we're brilliant, Like I'm African American, We're brilliant. And then
Speaker 1: the average fan worth of African Americans and scheduled by
Speaker 1: twenty fifty two to twenty fifty three to be about
Speaker 1: to see bro because we don't own homes forty one
Speaker 1: to thirty three percent of us own homes. We're not
Speaker 1: involved in the free prizes, the capitalist system. Beyond professional sports,
Speaker 1: the arts, and a few other categories, we're debating things
Speaker 1: that are stupid, like is our banks racism? I mean,
Speaker 1: we're spending wasting our time on all these ridiculous conversations
Speaker 1: that don't pay any money and they're not building any Well,
Speaker 1: we need to get over and get on with and
Speaker 1: we need to move on and move on. And this
Speaker 1: graph makes it clear that you can be white. And
Speaker 1: by the way, this white American category is seventy nine thousand.
Speaker 1: My guess is it also factors in poor whites. And
Speaker 1: if you if you pulled out poor whites, poor whites
Speaker 1: will probably be lower than African Americans. And what happens
Speaker 1: is you have a most people who are white American
Speaker 1: making one hundred and I'm making this up one hundred
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars a year, and then you have poor
Speaker 1: whites making thirty thousands a year. The average might be
Speaker 1: something like seventy nine thousand dollars a year, and the
Speaker 1: same would be afric American gym somebody like me who's
Speaker 1: part of the one percent, and you have you are
Speaker 1: part of the one percent. But that's not enough to
Speaker 1: offset people making ten thousand and fifteen thousands a year.
Speaker 1: You average that out and you have fifty one thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year. So these are averages again median household
Speaker 1: actually it's a median household income that's just not even
Speaker 1: the average and median household income by ethnicity in the
Speaker 1: United States of America. So this is complicated people, Right,
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean that racism is not is not real,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that somebody's not trying to wake up and
Speaker 1: hurt you, doesn't mean that the bank officer you talk
Speaker 1: to isn't racist. But that doesn't mean the bank is racist.
Speaker 1: The bank wants to make some money, right, They don't
Speaker 1: make money, they go broke. And if they're not lending
Speaker 1: you in money, they may think they're not that lending
Speaker 1: you money is going to make them go broke. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe they have a bad image of you as a
Speaker 1: person or us as a race.
Speaker 2: Is that image incorrect? Maybe? Maybe not.
Speaker 1: The average credit score for African Americans and six point twenty,
Speaker 1: which is pretty low, actually the lowest in the country,
Speaker 1: and we have to fix it. And it's something we
Speaker 1: can fix. By the way, I can't fix how you
Speaker 1: treat me or how you feel about me. I can
Speaker 1: fix my credit score, and we're doing it at Operation Hope. Now,
Speaker 1: let me wrap this up by talking about the largest
Speaker 1: group of poverty in this country, just to put a
Speaker 1: nail in this coffin, which are poor whites, not African Americans.
Speaker 1: The number one group of poverty in this country are
Speaker 1: poor whites, right, And the number one group dying are
Speaker 1: lasting my check, well, high school educated white men dying
Speaker 1: of depression through opioid addiction and other things, but basically
Speaker 1: is depression and poor whites and African Americans we're friends.
Speaker 2: Did you know that that's right?
Speaker 1: In sixteen early sixteen, hundreds African Americans and poor whites
Speaker 1: came here as and dented servants, and they worked together
Speaker 1: and became friends and ran away together. And when they
Speaker 1: got called, the overseers were like, hey, boss, we got
Speaker 1: a problem. These folks are getting along and they like
Speaker 1: each other. And the boss was like, what's the problem
Speaker 1: with that. The overseer was like, well, we can have
Speaker 1: a race problem, but we cannot have a class problem,
Speaker 1: because we're the class. They got to attack us, and
Speaker 1: they figured this thing out. So they took the whites
Speaker 1: and said, look, you ran away. You can't do that.
Speaker 1: You need two more years of attention servitude. Don't do
Speaker 1: that again. And by the way, you know you're white
Speaker 1: like us. That word was by the way, the word
Speaker 1: was made up. The racial word white is a made
Speaker 1: up word.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: In five billion years of the world history, four billion
Speaker 1: years of organism life in this world, two hundred million
Speaker 1: years of quote end quote human life Neanderthal, etc. One
Speaker 1: hundred thousand givers take years of modern life, human life
Speaker 1: and recorded history is we know it. You know, from
Speaker 1: the biblical period a few thousand years and there's eight
Speaker 1: big people on the planet day. By the way, but
Speaker 1: somehow the word white did not get created to the
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds in America.
Speaker 2: Come on, that's right.
Speaker 1: You had black royalty, you had blacks in positions and forwork.
Speaker 1: It's because for hundreds of years, it's about power and
Speaker 1: position in the world about your race. You're dark in
Speaker 1: Africa because the sun is direct, and you're white in
Speaker 1: Europe because the sun's indirect. Anyway, back to the topic, right,
Speaker 1: that whites and blacks were friends, and they were. It
Speaker 1: was a conspire and conspiracy to move them away from
Speaker 1: each other. And they told the whites, you're white like us.
Speaker 1: Now you're in charge of the black people. Now, these
Speaker 1: were poor whites who are not highly educated, so they
Speaker 1: did not ask, well, Boston might wealthy like you do,
Speaker 1: I have titles like you do, I have land like
Speaker 1: you do, I have positions like you, then I could
Speaker 1: be white like you. They didn't ask that question. They
Speaker 1: just said, okay, I'm white like you. And then they
Speaker 1: told the blacks, now you're you don't wait anymore because
Speaker 1: you're going to have lifetime enslavement, lifetime of work. That's
Speaker 1: with the beginning of what we call slavery. So now
Speaker 1: you have a two tiered system, and I guess they
Speaker 1: also said to the white, poor whites, you work hard
Speaker 1: up your own some of the blacks. So now that
Speaker 1: goes to friendship, there goes the kinship, that goes to bond.
Speaker 2: That's where.
Speaker 1: And you've heard of the rebellion that happened in the
Speaker 1: I believe it was the late sixteen hundreds, where whites
Speaker 1: and blacks webelled against her overseers together. This is documented.
Speaker 1: And somehow poor whites and poor blacks government opposite ends
Speaker 1: of each other. And we're still in this stupid argument today.
Speaker 1: And in many ways, poor whites who were left who
Speaker 1: succeeded a little bit during the Industrial Revolution, no one
Speaker 1: taught them free erprise or capitalism either. Three groups never
Speaker 1: taught free or prize capitalism, economics, ownership, and opportunity. Poor whites,
Speaker 1: American Indians, and African Americans intentionally on like that out
Speaker 1: of hundreds of ethnic groups in this country.
Speaker 2: So no one taught them that economic peace.
Speaker 1: But the Industrial Revolution manufacturing saved this group and they
Speaker 1: got a toe hold into jobs. And with a high
Speaker 1: school education, we're able to get a decent job working
Speaker 1: in a factory or whatever and have a pickup truck
Speaker 1: or a you know, vacation home or you know, the
Speaker 1: pickle truck was not pejorative, just saying, you know, the
Speaker 1: pickup truck or you know, a second car or vacation,
Speaker 1: not vacation home. But if they took a vacation, maybe
Speaker 1: get a boat or whatever, and they were happy, and
Speaker 1: so they weren't. And then the industrial revolution walked away,
Speaker 1: the economy evolved, and no one gave them a business
Speaker 1: plan for their future. And they were really for fifty years,
Speaker 1: no one more than fifty years, sixty years plus, no
Speaker 1: one paid them any attention whatsoever. And now they're riding
Speaker 1: at the ballot box because they're upset and frustrated. Black
Speaker 1: folks may ride on the streets, My poor white brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters are riding at the ballot box. Neither one
Speaker 1: of them is gonna work. That bleasant plan. Anger is
Speaker 1: not a business plan. Is this graph? I just shows
Speaker 1: you work in detail. It's about your mindset. It's about
Speaker 1: your education. It's about you understanding how the system works.
Speaker 1: It's about you focusing on things that are productive and
Speaker 1: then getting And if you hang around nine grow people,
Speaker 1: you'll be the tenth. So watching you hang around, watch
Speaker 1: the toxicity in your life. I need you to focus, John,
Speaker 1: how do you stay so clearheaded? I walk through life
Speaker 1: consciously oblivious and most things around me because it just
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. So we've covered a lot of ground on
Speaker 1: this podcast. Let's have a conversation. Yes, racism is real,
Speaker 1: of course it is. But your aspiration can outshine somebody
Speaker 1: else's racism. I'll put it another way, My rich frenzy,
Speaker 1: my poor friends do better if only to stay rich,
Speaker 1: I'll put it. I'll put it in another way or
Speaker 1: an additional way. Even the racist needs a black person
Speaker 1: to succeed because we all need GDP gross domestic product
Speaker 1: to rise. And when GDP rises, everybody prospers. And racism
Speaker 1: is a bad business plan wherever you find it. It's
Speaker 1: just stupid for business, and it won't create wealth or
Speaker 1: opportunity beyond an individual case here or there, But as
Speaker 1: a group of people, it is a losing proposition. And
Speaker 1: I'll cover that, break that out in detail in my
Speaker 1: series The Business Plan for America that you'll hear on
Speaker 1: this podcast.
Speaker 2: So enjoy the rest of your.
Speaker 1: Day and week and be inspired and know that yes,
Speaker 1: in spider racism over the rounded, through it, you can
Speaker 1: get to what you can succeed because the color ultimately
Speaker 1: is not black or white, or red or blue as
Speaker 1: a race in politics, the color actually is green. Hey, Hey,
Speaker 1: John O'Brien, this is a fan question. What is the
Speaker 1: best investment you can make at this time? What it
Speaker 1: appears you already did it. You guess such a unique name.
Speaker 1: You clearly understand that your best investment as you. We're
Speaker 1: not human doings or human beings. God never gave anybody
Speaker 1: else the same fingerprints he gave you anybody else in
Speaker 1: the world. You're unique, So you're the investment. You're the brand.
Speaker 1: Invest in yourself. Get educated as much education that you
Speaker 1: can shove down your throat. It's one of my principles
Speaker 1: of the five pillars success that I put in my
Speaker 1: whole approach to living The Pillars also Up from Nothing
Speaker 1: and the memo book that I wrote in my new
Speaker 1: books Financial Literacy for All, you are the primary product.
Speaker 1: Get educated and then invest in conservative Well four one k.
Speaker 1: If you work for somebody else, you want to that
Speaker 1: at matching money because it's free money. Get the ear
Speaker 1: income task credit. Well, that's not an investment. Let me
Speaker 1: back up. Four oh one K. If you work for
Speaker 1: somebody in the have a matching program. That's found money's
Speaker 1: free money. If you start a business, that's an investment
Speaker 1: in yourself. Buy some stocks, but make them conservative stocks
Speaker 1: by doing investment in the mutual fund even starts investing
Speaker 1: in the stock market, but do it conservatively with sort
Speaker 1: of best in class. Easy to get, easy to you,
Speaker 1: manage you know, actually I'm a professional manager. Manage your
Speaker 1: stocks when you first get in it. Don't try to
Speaker 1: do it yourself until you're comfortable with it. And or
Speaker 1: buy a home. You got to listen where if you
Speaker 1: are of adult age, so why renference might like me,
Speaker 1: you'd buy something for yourself and see your appreciation happen
Speaker 1: right in front of you. There are other things you
Speaker 1: can do, but here these are some easy ones. And
Speaker 1: essentially all these are versions of me saying, invest in yourself.
Speaker 2: John O'Brien Love.
Speaker 1: And Life, Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a
Speaker 1: production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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Speaker 2: P