Latest / Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant / The Color of Gentrification Is Green

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The Color of Gentrification Is Green · Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant, a
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  Speaker 1: production of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, hey, everybody,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: it's John Hope Bryant here. This is the Money and
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Wealth Podcast series on iHeartRadio and the Black Effect Network.
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  Speaker 1: And welcome to another, well, explosive episode from me. Whenever
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  Speaker 1: I come here solo, know I'm coming and I'm bringing
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  Speaker 1: you some heat. I'm bringing some fire and bringing some focus.
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  Speaker 1: And this episode is no different. By the way, thank
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  Speaker 1: you once again for making this podcast top 75 for
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  Speaker 1: entrepreneurship in the world and top 250 for business on
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  Speaker 1: most every continent in the world. Not black business, not
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  Speaker 1: black entrepreneurship, all business and all entrepreneurship because all of
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  Speaker 1: this is the same. But I want people to understand
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  Speaker 1: that when mainstream America has a headache, Black and brown
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  Speaker 1: folks have pneumonia, yet we're all sick. And for the
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  Speaker 1: first time in history, America's underserved. And I believe if
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  Speaker 1: you deal with class, you get raised for free. The
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  Speaker 1: color is really green, not black or white or red
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  Speaker 1: or blue. I'll get into that in a minute. But
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  Speaker 1: for the first time in history, when everybody left behind
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  Speaker 1: does not get a hand up to get on the
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  Speaker 1: opportunity scale, it's going to actually, for the first time
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  Speaker 1: in history, cause suffering for those at the top. And
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  Speaker 1: I'll get into that as part of this episode. We
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  Speaker 1: are all in this thing together. This episode's title is
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  Speaker 1: the color of gentrification. The color of gentrification is green.
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  Speaker 1: And while America's inner cities are economic gold mines, why
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  Speaker 1: they are gold mines and why we must own the upside.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm doing this at a time where we're seeing
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  Speaker 1: rioting in one of the most prestigious inner cities in
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  Speaker 1: the world, which is Paris. They have a reverse problem.
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  Speaker 1: They're poor and struggling people who live in the suburbs.
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  Speaker 1: They have smartly claimed their inner city in France is
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  Speaker 1: Paris and the UK is London. They've claimed them as
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  Speaker 1: centrally located valuable real estate and that's where all the
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  Speaker 1: wealth moved to. They didn't do enough, in my opinion,
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  Speaker 1: to address the issues. By the way, I think what's
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  Speaker 1: happening in Paris is absolutely disgusting and there's uncalled for
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  Speaker 1: because you're hurting not the government, you're not hurting the
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  Speaker 1: legacy of exclusion. You're not hurting policymakers. You're hurting small
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  Speaker 1: business owners, many of them immigrants, many of them who
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  Speaker 1: came up from nothing, not just big corporations. You're hurting
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  Speaker 1: the small business owner when you raid and rob their
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  Speaker 1: small shop in Paris. So I'm not down with this
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  Speaker 1: at all. I think it's completely devastating. And I said
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  Speaker 1: when I was a first-ever Goodwill ambassador for the United
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  Speaker 1: Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, in the late 90s,
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  Speaker 1: I believe it was, they made me the first-ever United
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  Speaker 1: Nations ambassador. were the UNCTAD goodwill ambassador to the United
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  Speaker 1: States of America out of Switzerland to the U.S. I
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  Speaker 1: went to Paris. I went to give a speech in Lyon, France.
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  Speaker 1: And I said then that by avoiding and ignoring the
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  Speaker 1: inner cities, I'm sorry, the suburbs in France, that they
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  Speaker 1: were setting themselves up for rioting. And they booed me.
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  Speaker 1: The French booed me. Oh, get out of here. You
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  Speaker 1: don't know what you're talking about. Well, within two years
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  Speaker 1: of that speech, there were riots and in Paris, not
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  Speaker 1: as big as these riots, by the way, but there
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  Speaker 1: was rioting and unrest in Paris. Go, go check it out,
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  Speaker 1: go back and do the research. And now here it
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  Speaker 1: goes again, because they never really addressed the issues that
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  Speaker 1: extend opportunity, not a handout, but a hand up to
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  Speaker 1: the suburbs. And we have that reverse problem here in America.
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  Speaker 1: Our inner cities are where the poor and the struggling
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  Speaker 1: have been placed and the Those with resources have moved
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  Speaker 1: to the suburbs actually here, but they don't want that
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  Speaker 1: hour commute back and forth from the inner city. So
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  Speaker 1: they're moving in many cases back and thus now a
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  Speaker 1: bit of a conflict. So let me now frame this
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  Speaker 1: out and, you know, and the why I'll get to
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  Speaker 1: why this topic right now at this tick of the watch,
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  Speaker 1: am I doing this episode? We should not, let me
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  Speaker 1: give the thesis first. So we should not fear investment, revitalization.
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  Speaker 1: First of all, let me back up. Let me give
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  Speaker 1: you the definition of gentrification. Gentrification, the dictionary definition, people,
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  Speaker 1: has nothing to do with race. Nothing, zero. It is
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  Speaker 1: a movement to middle-class values. That's what gentrification is. And
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  Speaker 1: we should not fear that. We should want that. We
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  Speaker 1: should want folks to go from the, the poor class,
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  Speaker 1: the working class, the struggling class, to the working middle class,
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  Speaker 1: to the middle class, to the upper middle class, and
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  Speaker 1: also to include the wealthy from those who struggle from
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  Speaker 1: the bottom to the top. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
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  Speaker 1: The central thesis of this podcast at five minutes in,
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  Speaker 1: you can tell I'm passionate about it. I'm rambling. We
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  Speaker 1: should not fear investment, revitalization, or rising economic value in
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  Speaker 1: America's inner cities. We should fear a model of economic
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  Speaker 1: development that creates wealth without allowing long-time residents to participate
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  Speaker 1: in that wealth. And that pushes them out of their
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  Speaker 1: own communities by no fault of their own, or worse,
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  Speaker 1: by fear or by violence, as has happened in Tulsa,
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  Speaker 1: the many examples of Greenwood, of Black Wall Street being
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  Speaker 1: burned down, being terrorized in the 20th century, and also
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  Speaker 1: in the 19th century. So that's unacceptable. I do not
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  Speaker 1: believe that's the problem today. If we had communities rise up,
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  Speaker 1: I do not believe that would be the central problem.
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  Speaker 1: But I will explain that as part of my description
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  Speaker 1: of the breaking down of this podcast episode, why that
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  Speaker 1: is not a real concern that we should all be
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  Speaker 1: obsessed with today. And I actually break it down in
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: this bestselling book, Capitalism for All, which has been bestseller
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  Speaker 1: now for seven, going on eight months. Thank you everybody
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  Speaker 1: for making it a bestseller. And I want you to
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: pick this book up if you haven't already. If you have,
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  Speaker 1: I want you to review it wherever you bought the book,
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  Speaker 1: whether it's Amazon or Walmart or Target or a black bookstore,
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  Speaker 1: wherever you bought this book, please go back and review it.
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  Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble, et cetera. Okay. The color of gentrification
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  Speaker 1: isn't black or white. It isn't red or blue. It's
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  Speaker 1: economic green. And the question here is who gets the green?
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  Speaker 1: Segment one, the Brooklyn debate. So I saw my friend Charlemagne,
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  Speaker 1: my God, who is one of the most eloquent and
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  Speaker 1: sophisticated thinkers who can go from the streets to the
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  Speaker 1: suites and the suites to the streets and back flawlessly,
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  Speaker 1: who is a community-based prophet who is brilliant in many
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  Speaker 1: ways and very sophisticated in his thinking while still being
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  Speaker 1: very pragmatic and practical and cares deeply about his people
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  Speaker 1: and is walking his talk. And he got on a,
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  Speaker 1: I think it was a podcast episode. I can't remember
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  Speaker 1: the structure of whether it was an interview, media interview,
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  Speaker 1: or just a podcast with some people he calls friends.
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  Speaker 1: And they got into a respectful debate, but he got
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  Speaker 1: very passionate. And I saw him debating about whether Jay-Z
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  Speaker 1: was responsible for not just Brooklyn's gentrification, but the displacement,
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  Speaker 1: as one of the interviewers suggested, of 50,000 Black Brooklyners,
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  Speaker 1: 50,000 Black people from Brooklyn. And I just decided to
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  Speaker 1: weigh in. I weighed in on the post. I made
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  Speaker 1: a comment. And let me tell you exactly what I said.
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  Speaker 1: So he thought it was bad in France. Let me
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  Speaker 1: tell you exactly what I said in the comments on
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  Speaker 1: this post. And so you're really clear of when I
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  Speaker 1: have opinion about something that I'm not afraid to weigh in.
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  Speaker 1: all the way in, and I want my friends to
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  Speaker 1: know that I'm ride or die for them, as I'm also,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: I believe, ride or die for the truth. Because misinformation
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  Speaker 1: is worse than no information at all. Being cynical is
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  Speaker 1: worse than being skeptical, because you convince yourself of a
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  Speaker 1: false narrative. Don't bother with the facts, I've already made
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  Speaker 1: up my mind. What I said in this post And
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  Speaker 1: the post, you can find it is in the, you know,
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  Speaker 1: they're suggesting that Jay-Z in the face of gentrification is
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  Speaker 1: the face of gentrification in that Charlemagne and this gentleman, Mouse,
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  Speaker 1: this friend of his, get into this debate over whether
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  Speaker 1: Jay-Z is responsible for the displacement of 50,000 Black families
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  Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. And I, again, Mouse seems really smart and
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  Speaker 1: very articulate, and I generally enjoy him, listening to him
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  Speaker 1: and Charlemagne go at it. This particular time I weighed in,
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  Speaker 1: I said, This is all ridiculous. This is my actual comment.
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  Speaker 1: The dictionary definition of gentrification is a movement to middle
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  Speaker 1: class values. So if Black America had prioritized becoming wealth
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  Speaker 1: owners and solid middle class and upper middle class participants,
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  Speaker 1: then middle and upper middle class Brooklyn residents would still
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  Speaker 1: be Black. And the local stores were going away, unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: that they were saying that the The stadium that went
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  Speaker 1: in that Jay-Z supported, and I'm going to get to
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  Speaker 1: that in a minute too, that's not the way it appears,
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  Speaker 1: that that stadium displaced small business owners. Those small businesses
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  Speaker 1: were going to get displaced anyway. Don't you know that
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Sears owned the marketplace? And this is not even a
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  Speaker 1: small business, it's a big business. They owned the marketplace.
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  Speaker 1: They had mail order catalogs. They had layaway. They had
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  Speaker 1: all of our mailing addresses for our parents. Ask your parents.
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  Speaker 1: Sears was everything. Kmart was everything. JCPenney's was everything until
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't. Now that's Walmart, Amazon, right? Blockbuster was everything.
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  Speaker 1: Now it's Netflix, right? And if Netflix doesn't reinvent itself,
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  Speaker 1: it'll be in trouble. Capitalism is a gladiator sport, people,
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  Speaker 1: and it is destructive and constructive. It creates and it destroys.
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  Speaker 1: And consumer tastes change. Remember, there used to be a
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  Speaker 1: pay telephone booth on every corner. Gone. There used to
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  Speaker 1: be a Kodak film development booth in every strip mall. Gone.
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  Speaker 1: This is the story. of, of economic development and revitalization. Look,
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  Speaker 1: you know, Motown, you know, owned the whole game. This
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  Speaker 1: is a black entrepreneur. Okay. And he had the means
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  Speaker 1: of a vertically integrated production facility. Right. But at some point,
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  Speaker 1: even Motown's model had to reinvent itself or go away. And,
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  Speaker 1: and it was, you know, and other, other models, black included, emerged,
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  Speaker 1: including Jay-Z's model. But at the time it was everything.
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  Speaker 1: So You go far enough in the North Pole, you
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  Speaker 1: end up South. Those stores were going to be displaced anyway.
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  Speaker 1: And let me just go ahead and say now, let
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  Speaker 1: me finish my comment. And so the local stores were
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  Speaker 1: going away anytime, whether Jay-Z did this deal on the
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  Speaker 1: stadium or not. This is the very nature of a
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  Speaker 1: growing economy anywhere and everywhere. Charlemagne, I said, this conversation
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  Speaker 1: is emotional, not you. You're the only one spitting facts
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  Speaker 1: in non-emotional analysis. Whenever you make an emotional decision, it's
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  Speaker 1: going to be the wrong one. The color is not
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  Speaker 1: black or white or red or blue. The color is green.
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  Speaker 1: It always has been green. And then the discussion goes
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  Speaker 1: back and forth and back and forth. And I end up,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: as I often do, using a post as a comment,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: using a comment as a way to create a new conversation,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: almost a new post. to try to educate. And none
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: of this was personal with these guys that did this
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: podcast episode. I was respectful in all my comments. I'm
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: respectful now. I'm saying I love and respect you. And
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I think you're really smart. I think this is just
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  Speaker 1: an opportunity to educate our whole population, our whole communities
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  Speaker 1: on why you're seeing what's happening in front of you.
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  Speaker 1: And it is not what you think. First of all,
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  Speaker 1: that deal that Jay-Z did was in the works for
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  Speaker 1: planning authorities and city governments and county governments and state governments.
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  Speaker 1: You don't do a stadium like that without everybody being involved.
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  Speaker 1: That was in the works four years. Years before Jay-Z
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  Speaker 1: ever saw a stitch of that business plan. They brought
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  Speaker 1: him in at some point and gave him a piece
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  Speaker 1: of something, ownership, but it was a minor piece, a minor,
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  Speaker 1: minor piece. No disrespect to him. I'm glad he got it.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, no disrespect, period. No one else got it.
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  Speaker 1: Only he got it and does respect for him. And
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  Speaker 1: if he had not got it, no one would have
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  Speaker 1: gotten it, probably. So I'm glad he got a piece.
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  Speaker 1: And because of that, a bunch of Black business owners
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  Speaker 1: on record have said they would not have been vendors
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  Speaker 1: on the development of that stadium in Brooklyn had he
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: not leaned in. There was one, I think, Black female
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  Speaker 1: in particular who made it clear that if she had not,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: if he had not done what he did, she would
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: not now be a multimillionaire and have gotten that opportunity
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  Speaker 1: to be a major contractor is because of his ownership.
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  Speaker 1: I believe somebody told me that Jay-Z owned less than 1%
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  Speaker 1: of the New York Nets, but he's the face of
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  Speaker 1: gentrification in Brooklyn. Like, that just doesn't make any sense
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  Speaker 1: at all. But I'm just glad that, you know, that
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  Speaker 1: he was able to be an owner of the Nets.
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  Speaker 1: And gentrification was happening, by the way, before Jay-Z did
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  Speaker 1: this deal. That's the whole reason that the people wanted
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: to build the stadium is that it was a movement
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  Speaker 1: to middle-class values. There's this developer, I believe her name
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: is Cheryl McKissick, said that Jay-Z helped her get her
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: contract for that very stadium. And, and again, there were Barclays,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: think of the stadiums called Barclays. And there's a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of other minority contractors who got a piece of the
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: game because Jay-Z was a pioneer and pioneers, it appears,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: get arrows, right? But I want to commend you, Jay-Z,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: as you said, you're not a businessman, you're a business man.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: And just because people don't understand you doesn't mean you're wrong.
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  Speaker 1: So Charlamagne was right to defend him, but this is
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: just wasting time and wasting oxygen to talk about this.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Why do we blame celebrities instead of examining ownership, capital, zoning,
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  Speaker 1: and development? Who owned Brooklyn's properties before values increased? Who
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: bought the assets, financed the deals, and captured the appreciation
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: on those assets? What happened to long-term and long-time homeowners
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: and the renters and the small businesses? Let's distinguish the
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: reported decline in Brooklyn's black population from the unverified claim
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: that 50,000 families were displaced specifically because of a certain
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: personality's involvement or gentrification, which is by the way, just misinformation.
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  Speaker 1: The real question isn't why Brooklyn became valuable. It's why
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: more of the people who made Brooklyn valuable, didn't get
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: rich along with it. Now that's a mic drop. So
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: let's talk about American inner cities as economic gold mines.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: I was just in Detroit. I was in four cities
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: last week. I was in Detroit. Then I was in
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: speaking to the Detroit city council at their planning meeting
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: and thank them very much for inviting me. I was
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: in the next day, Syracuse speaking there. for Bishop Dewberry
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and his economic conference. And they're looking at the effects
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: of a hundred billion dollar development investment from Micron and
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: what that does for their community, the black community there
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: and how they can participate. Then I went to Buffalo
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: and spoke in Buffalo for brilliant people there, both meeting
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: with a group of economic development leaders in the morning
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: and then meeting with the minority and women business summit
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: participants and getting a tour of a nonprofit run by
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: a bad sister in Buffalo that owns several buildings in
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Buffalo and meeting in Buffalo with the Buffalo really coalition
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: of neighborhood building, the Buffalo Federation of Neighborhood Centers, Neighborhood
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Building Organizations. in Buffalo and their brilliant CEO there who
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: is doing a fantastic job, a Black woman. And as
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I transverse these different communities and looked around at what
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I was seeing, I couldn't help but see gold mines
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: all around me. And some people there realized there were
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: gold mines. There's a lady, Chandra Redfern, who's the CEO
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: of the Buffalo Federation of Neighborhood Centers, who brought me
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: into Buffalo. This is my second time there in the
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: last couple months. So I'm there on purpose. I have
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: an office there, open side of KeyBank. I went there
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: four years ago with the CEO of KeyBank, Chris, who's
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the CEO of that bank and a visionary. But this sister, Chandra,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: brought me back because she recognizes the brilliance of Buffalo.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: But let me back up. Detroit. Detroit. enormous potential, was
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: the richest city in the world per capita, certainly in
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the United States in the 1950s. Yep, I said it,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the richest city per capita. But today the credit score
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: is about 570. Yep, that's the average credit score. And
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: as I told the leaders that I met with, you
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: can almost end the meeting there. Because until you zero
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: in and you fix that, You can have as much
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: economic development as you want. You need more economic empowerment.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: You need empowerment to hit at the individual level because 70%
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: of this economy is consumer spending. And at a 570
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: credit score neighborhood, and you guys know already that through
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Operation Hope, my philanthropy, 2,000 offices in 43 states, the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: biggest nonprofit of its kind in the country, we've mapped
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: every zip code in America by credit score, the Hope
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Financial Wellness Index. You can Pull it up and type
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: in your zip code, and I'll tell you how you're living.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: It will tell you how you're living. And the average
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: credit score for African Americans nationwide, the lowest in the country,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: is 620. You can't get anything done progressively at 620.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: You can't get a car loan. You get a car
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: from a secondary car lot, a Mercedes at 18% interest.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: It's not a Mercedes. It's Mercedes payments. And it's going
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: to be an economic bomb. It's going to blow up
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: in your face. You can't get a decent home loan.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: You need 680 to 700 credit score for that. I
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: want you to get prime credit from a bank. That's
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: why Operation Hope is the only nonprofit in history ever
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: allowed to operate inside of a bank branch. I'm going
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: to say it again. Operation Hope is the only nonprofit
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: in US history ever allowed to operate inside of an
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: FDIC insured bank branch because the bank can't tell you
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: what we can tell you. So the employees of the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: bank can say, you know what, you need to go
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: talk to the folks at Operation Hope because they work
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: with us. They don't work for us. And then we
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: get the person's credit score up 54 points in six months,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: their debt down $ 3, 800, their savings up $ 1, 200, which might
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: make it $ 58, 000. And then walking back over to the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: bank because we understand the bank's criteria. And if we
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: can get your credit score up to 680 to 700,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: we can get the bank in most cases, to say
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: yes to you, which is why we've directed $ 4. 5 billion
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: of capital through Operation Hope, creating homeowners, small business owners, entrepreneurs,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: et cetera, at Operation Hope within banks. So when you're
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: looking at a 570 credit score area, you're looking at it,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and there's a 90-point credit score shift between urban Detroit
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and the either 7, I think, or 11-county area, metropolitan
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: county of Detroit, the surrounding areas, And another good friend
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: of mine is running the Detroit Chamber, who's doing a great,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: great job there, Sandy Brewer. But that growth is really happening,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: and economic growth is happening in the surrounding areas mostly,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: even though Detroit Central made Detroit and was the richest
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: city per capita in the country in the 1950s, of course,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: because of the automobile industry. But a 570 credit score means,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and you've heard me say this before, you have a
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: check casher next to a, Payday loan lender next to
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: a rental home store next to a title lender next
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: to a, as in a car title, next to a
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: liquor store and a pawn shop, fast food restaurant, a
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: church down the street trying to make you feel a
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: little bit better once a week so you don't go
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: postal on Monday, go crazy. We used to go to church,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: by the way. They kept us sane. Now we're not
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: doing that. That's a problem. Depression's on the rise. A
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: surviving mindset's on the rise. Let's go back to the
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: 570 credit score neighborhood. So in a 570 credit score neighborhood,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: you have some other things going on. You have low
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: home ownership rates. This is not Detroit. This is every
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: zip code in America. I need you to understand this
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: is every urban inner city zip code in America. It's
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: where I grew up in South Central Los Angeles, Compton, California.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: It was Harlem. Harlem is gentrifying. Somebody would have given
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: you a property in Harlem 40 years ago, given it
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: to you, given it to you 40 years ago. Yeah,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: given it to you. In the 80s, I mean, absolutely here,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: 90s even too. And you could have bought it for
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: a teardown for next to nothing 10 years after that.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: But then 20 years ago, a teardown was a million
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: bucks in Harlem. Now, Harlem's on the rise. Harlem is,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, really it's geographically upper Manhattan. The Ku Klux
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Klan didn't run us out of Harlem. Real talk. Nobody
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: in white robes ran us out of Harlem. It wasn't pitchforks.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: We gave Harlem away. And I think we gave South
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Central L.A. away. The black population used to be huge
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: in South Central L.A. and now it's displaced by a
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Latino population and a mainstream population. And South Central, quote unquote,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: is mostly moved, if you know L.A., moved east. What's
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: west has been reclaimed as Los Angeles or West Los
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Angeles with a small encove of a small beacon of
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: hope in Ladera Heights and Baldwin Hills, if you know
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles, of some still middle-class and upper middle-class Blacks.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: And Crenshaw, and kudos to Bishop Blake and his family
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and what they've done at West Angeles Church of God
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: and Christ and what used to be Reverend Murray's church
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: where I grew up, First Amy Church, that church has
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: filed bankruptcy. They've lost a lot of their properties because
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: they lost their way, they lost their vision, they lost
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: their leadership. Bishop Blake has stayed at the West Angeles
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Church forever, and it shows. Now his son's running it,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: and they own real estate up and down that city,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: that area. They're employing people. It's blossoming, and the congregation
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: is prospering as they have prospered. So this is a
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: national problem. I'm not picking on Detroit, just to be clear.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: But you're going to have, in a 570 credit score neighborhood,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: you know, You're going to have single parent households. You're
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: going to have a home ownership rate of, in the twos, 28, 29%.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: This is mostly black, by the way. You're going to
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: have violent crimes per thousand off the chain, like just
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: jumping right off of the page. You're going to have
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: low levels of high school, I mean, of high school
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: graduation in the 60s. And forget about college and higher education.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: And you're going to die at 61 years of age.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: So basically for every... I found that for every 50
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: point increase in your credit score, you live about five
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: more years. Yes, that's right. If you live in a 500,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: 550 credit score neighborhood, you died about 61 years of age.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: This is what my national study has shown zip code
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: by zip code in every urban city in America. In
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: 15 minutes apart is a 700 credit score neighborhood where
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: you live to about 700, 700, to about 81 years
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: of age. So a 700 credit score neighborhood, you live
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: to about 80, one years of age. So you have
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: essentially a 20-year delta, they call it, a 20-year difference
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: based on your credit score. And it's not about the
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: credit score either. It's about the trending indicators of hope, well-being, belief, confidence, joy.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: It's really about your mindset and that mindset, thoughts are things,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: that mindset affects most everything else. So If you get
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: your mind right, get your head right, get your financial
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: literacy right, get your credit score right, then you start
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: being optimistic about other things. And you start aspiring and
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: you start owning versus renting. You start marrying and staying married.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Your whole vibe changes and you start getting access to
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: prime credit from banks and corporations, which allows you to
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: buy things at reasonable rates and terms and hold on
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: to them. Of course, in the hood, everything is immensely expensive.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: So Detroit, I gave Detroit a bit of a business
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: plan when I was there, one of which is that
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: they should have a 700 credit score Detroit challenge initiative.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: And they embraced that, I might add. And I was
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: very proud of the time I spent there. And I
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: want to commend the city council president there and the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: city council members that I met for listening to my out-of-the-box,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: pushing-the-envelope example of how capitalism, I signed my book when
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I was there, I gave all the council members a
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: member of my book, I'm on a national tour for
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: capitalism for all, of how good capitalism could actually help
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: to allow them to achieve all their intended benefits of
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: grace and dignity for the rest of the residents, because
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: you can't do anything broke. if your outflow exceeds your inflow,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: then your overhead is going to be your downfall because
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: they benefit, the city is going to benefit based on
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: a tax base. And, you know, people say, oh, I
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: want to work for the government. Where do you think
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the government's money came from? It comes from taxpayers. Oh,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: I want to work for a nonprofit. Where do you
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: think the nonprofit's money comes from? It comes from taxpayers. Well,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I don't like capitalists. Oh, really? That lady who's doing
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: your hair in Detroit or whatever city you're doing in, lady,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: somebody doing your hair. Okay, girl. Oh yeah. We had
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: a great time last night. Oh yeah. How's your family? Okay, great.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Thanks for doing my hair. That's fantastic. And at some
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: point she says, So do I pay you by Venmo
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: or cash app or what? Because she wants her money.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: She's not doing it for free. She's a capitalist. All right.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: And you're paying your phone bill and somebody's cutting your
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: hair and getting paid and somebody's doing your nails and
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: getting paid. We're confusing busyness with business. Okay. So every community,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: every partnership, every neighborhood, every family has to have every,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: every organized group has to have three things in your organization,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: a hunter, a skinner, and a cook. Okay. You have
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: to have a beginner, a giver mentality. You got to
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: be curious. You got to be nosy. You got to
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: be financially literate. You have to, you have to understand
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: how market economy works and somebody has to be a hunter.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: That's me. Somebody has to be a Skinner, the bookkeeper,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the analyst, the planner, the strategist, the, the, the, the
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: organizer and the auditor. Somebody has to be the cook.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Somebody delivers the product. Oh, let me get back to
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: what I was saying about Detroit. So I gave them
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: a business plan from child savings account, which we do
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: here in Atlanta and, to financial literacy for all, to
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: AI literacy for all. Do not be afraid of AI.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: It's not going anywhere. You're going to have to embrace
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: it because your job's not going to be replaced by AI.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Your job, in all likelihood, will be replaced by somebody
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: who can use AI. So they embraced that theory. I
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: told them my business plan for Black America because the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: vast majority of people in Detroit are African-American. I gave
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: them my business plan for Black America, which is in
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: the book, Capitalism for All. I walked them through $ 3. 6
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: trillion of possible wealth creation in 10 years. from home ownership,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: small business ownership, AI, business acquisition, don't start a business,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: buy an existing profitable one because 90% of all successful
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: businesses close voluntarily. And I gave them my whole business
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: plan and they really did embrace it. And if they
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: do any portion of that, you will see Detroit's economic
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: realities rise quarter by quarter, year over year, and they
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: will once again join the ranks of of a top
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: tier city in america it's something similar to what atlanta
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: did i mean we're 600 billion dollar economy here but
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: we're too busy to hate and the city is not
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: black or white it's green and everybody works together trying
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: to to prove that we are best in class and
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: it's the busiest airport in the world and yeah there
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: are problems but by the way there is not racial
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: you got black wealth and then you have black poverty
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and we got to solve the black poverty but it's
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: not a racial thing. It's a class thing. It's a
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: green thing. It's an opportunity thing. And making sure that
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: more opportunity expands to more people, which is what Mayor
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Andre Dickinson is trying to do here. So you've got
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: these inner cities in America, which are gold mines. And
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I need you to think about Anacostia outside of Washington, D.C.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: It's already, by the way, going through gentrification, which again
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: is a movement of middle-class values. The Coast Guard moved there.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: The government's put a lot of investments there. And what
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: used to be a horrible piece of land next to
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: the water in the 20th century on a hill, which
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: is Frederick Douglass' historic home there. They put a lot
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: of poor people up on the hill. They gave poor
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: people a chance to buy this property because nobody wanted
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: it in the early 20th century, in the late 19th century,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: because in the Industrial Revolution, The plants in the factories
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: polluted the air and dumped in the water. So the
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: worst place to own land was on a hill next
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: to the water. But we live in a clean economy now.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: We live in a technology economy, a finance economy, a
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: tourism economy, a clean economy. And so where's the best land? Now,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: next to the water, on the hill. So in Anacostia,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: that became the most valuable property. We owned it. We
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: let it slip away. didn't pay the taxes, gave it away, whatever.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: And Frederick Douglass still has that historic house there, the
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Frederick Douglass. It's a historical home. You should visit it.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: But a large part of Black ownership doesn't exist, which
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: is another one of my podcasts where I'll be doing
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: called Renting the Dream. You cannot rent the dream and
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: expect your life to work out well. You can't rent
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: your car, rent your apartment, rent your life, rent your dreams.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: You got to own something, right? So Anacostia, another example,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: I already gave an example of Harlem. I'll give you
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the examples of South Central. When I moved to Atlanta
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: in 2009, I don't know what the home values were.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: It was after the economic crisis. It was during the
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: economic crisis, the downturn. There was a lot of foreclosures
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. But by 2015, I
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: was buying houses and I bought houses for $ 88, 000 in
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the city of Atlanta. I later sold five years later
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: those homes. I was the largest minority owner of single
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: family rental homes in America, owned about 700 homes. I
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: sold those homes, sold the business for about $ 250, 000 each.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not a genius. I didn't pick the homes up
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: and move them, right? It's just appreciation. That's the power
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: of appreciation. And that's still low for an average home value.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: And so I think that Atlanta has a lot of opportunities,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: certainly the seven county areas of Atlanta. If Atlanta is
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: too expensive for you, still opportunity. But you can fly
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: into Atlanta, look down and see green space everywhere. That
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: means there's economic growth waiting to be had. There's more
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: people moving in Atlanta than moving out. So there's some
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: things you can do to check to see if the
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: area you're looking at is prime for growth. And whether
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: you can, you make money during the day, you build
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: wealth in your sleep. Okay. So stop focusing on, I
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: did the podcast on this about money's overrated. Stop focusing
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: on the cash, the bag, the dollar, the money. That's
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: all short-term thinking of people in a surviving mindset, right?
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: You need to have a long-term view and a winning,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: a building mindset. And you need to own assets. You
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: need to own homes, businesses. You have to have an
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: insurance policy, a will. You got to take some of
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: your money, put it in the stock market because you're
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: only going to win this game if you ride the
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: appreciation up, which is essentially the whole theme of this podcast.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: That if folks in Brooklyn who are now whining about
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: being displaced, if you owned, okay, if you own the
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: property and didn't sell and paid your property taxes, you know,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: You bought it at, I don't know, you bought it
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: at 100,000 or 200,000 way back when, and now it's
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: worth a million. Okay. Worst case scenario, if you just
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: can't pay the property taxes anymore, you don't want to
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: hold on, you sell it for a million. And guess what?
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: You've now picked up $ 800, 000 or more, and you can
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: take that money and go move someplace else that's more
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: affordable or start a business or invest in the stock
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: market or whatever you want to do. Buy investment property
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: and rent an apartment temporarily, whatever you want to do.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: But now you've got wealth creation, okay? But if you
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: were renting the game, which is what most of us
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: do in all these communities, we're renting the game, or
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: we sell, or we've lost the properties for tax defaults, okay?
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: You can't blame anybody else who wants to come in.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Here in Atlanta, near the King Center, you see people
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: ride around 20 years ago with flip-flops and short pants
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: on a bicycle, Caucasian young couple or whatever. That's not
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: a tourist. That's an owner. And you can't get mad
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: at them because they bought something for what they thought
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: was next to nothing, centrally located near freeways and highways
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: and places of work, their places of work, cultural icons
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: like the King Center and shops. Then they opened a
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: little shop down the street. You can't get upset with
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: them for making a choice that we didn't. But that's
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: why I say that financial literacy is a civil rights
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: issue of this generation. Because when you know better, you
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: do better. And the step above that is capitalism for all,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: which is my book that's out now. understanding how this
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: market economy works. The Bible tells you the money's not evil.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: It's the love of money that's evil. Capitalism's not bad.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: It's the greed. It's the bad capitalism that's bad. I
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: need you to embrace the tenets of this because if
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: we had created a black middle class and a black
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: upper middle class who own assets and businesses in Brooklyn,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: then Brooklyn will be a gentrified black and brown neighborhood
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: with wealth creation. And then you'd still be riding the
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: the values up and then, and then jobs can create,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: you can get a better job in the area. And it's,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: it becomes a, a, a virtuous circle versus a circular
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: firing squad where we're blaming somebody who has nothing to
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: do in this case, Jay-Z of the transformation that was
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: going on in Brooklyn, literally 20 years before, 20 years
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: before that Barclays Center went on, the data was showing
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: that place was on the rise. I mean, Brooklyn, as
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: I'm told, I don't spend a lot of time in Brooklyn,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: but I'm told is as vibrant in many ways as
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Manhattan is. It's his own ecosystem. That didn't happen because
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: of Barclays Center or what Jay-Z did. What Jay-Z did
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: in the Barclays Center was a signal to confirm that
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the economy was already on fire. And we didn't ride
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: it up by owning assets and holding on to them. So,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Inner cities often have extraordinary advantages, proximity to downtown employment,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: existing infrastructure, transit, universities, hospitals, cultural identity, and established consumer markets.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Yet many neighborhoods have historically suffered from disinvestment, discriminatory lending practices,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: poor infrastructure maintenance, and limited access to capital. And again,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: if your credit score is 500, 570, 600, by the way,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: it's going to be really hard to take advantage of
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: of the opportunities because you can't access the capital to
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: then buy the commercial buildings or the residential buildings, homes,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: or the businesses there that are going to be the
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: engines of appreciation. You're just a spectator in your own situation.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: So give you a credit score average. A low income
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: area is, you know, 655 and below. And what is
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: the average credit score for black America across the country?
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: 45 million black people, 620 for everybody. That's the average.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Doesn't mean that that's your credit score. That means that
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: when you average everybody's together and that's not good, it's 620.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: What's a moderate income? 685, which by the way, which
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: is what it is in Atlanta. What's a middle income? 717.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: What's an upper income? 745. What's Lincoln Park in Chicago? 745, 750,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: 760 credit score. People are living to 91 years of age,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: 90 years of age. What's Garfield Park, which is 15
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: minutes from Chicago? and inner city the hood both of
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: these are inner cities by the way 15 minutes apart
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: 15 minutes from the inner city up you know nice
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: shopping area whatever lincoln park is garfield park that's in
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: the 500s and people are dropping dead at 61 and
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: the single-parent households and it's crime and it's mayhem and
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: it's check cashers and payday loan lenders and rental stores
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: and title lenders and liquor stores and pawn shops and
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: it's under the kind and people are upset and rightly
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: so but In a blind town of one-eyed man's king,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: if you don't know it better, you can't do better.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: And the definition of insanity is doing the same thing
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Can
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: we please stop just talking about race? Please. And start
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: dealing with class. Because, by the way, if you don't
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: like this conversation, as my friend Michael Milken, who's one
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: of the forwards of my book, Capitalism for All, Michael
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Milken and Ambassador Young and Ed Bastian, the CEO of Delta,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: if you don't like the current system of change, you'll
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: like irrelevance even less. And that's what's coming next with
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: artificial intelligence. So To underscore, this is not about race.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: My white brothers and sisters are getting hit over the
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: head with AI before my black brothers and sisters are,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: but we're all in trouble for the AI if we
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: don't adapt and improve our mental and emotional and intellectual software.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Much more brutal than this capitalism game I'm trying to
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: get you to understand is the AI game that's coming
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: around the corner. Back to this topic. These communities are
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: not necessarily lacking economic potential. Many have been lacking investment
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: and pathways to ownership. So I've already talked to you
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: about South Central LA and Brooklyn, Atlanta, and Detroit. So
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: real estate investors identify undervalued assets like myself. They anticipate
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: economic growth and capture future appreciation. I need you to
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: underscore that sentence because that is a key to winning
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: in whatever community you want to research next. The greatest
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: economic opportunity in America may be sitting in neighborhoods that
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: America has spent generations overlooking. So gentrification is not the
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: same as prosperity. Neighborhood improvement is desirable. Involuntary displacement is not.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: So here's what happens when a community begins attracting prime capital.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Property values rise. New businesses and services arrive. Public and
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: private investment increases. Existing owners may accumulate substantial equity in
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: their properties and businesses. Renters and businesses without secure leases
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: may face higher costs or eviction or just lose out.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: They can't handle, they can't hold anymore, hang on anymore
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: so they don't renew and they go away and you're
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: not an owner so you have no negotiating leverage. and
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: being angry about the situation is not the answer. Cultural
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: identity and community relationships may be disrupted. What if residents
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: had the capital, the credit, the financial literacy, the ownership opportunities,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: and protections needed to participate? We don't want our neighborhoods
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: to remain poor so that our people can afford to stay.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: We want our people to become prosperous enough to participate
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: in the neighborhood they help to build as it grows
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: so they stay in a up-moving, prosperous environment. The ownership problem. Okay.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: The difference between money and wealth. I hinted on this earlier.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go a little deeper. Okay. Now, this
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: is sort of the emotional centerpiece of everything. Because my
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: mother owned $ 15 to $ 18 an hour. She made that
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: working at McDonald's, Douglas Aircraft. She had a high school education.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: She had a credit score of 854 when it went
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: that high. It goes to 850 now. She was very disciplined,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: very focused, came from a poor neighborhood in East St. Louis.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: We can buy a whole block to this day for $ 50, 000.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Came from a very poor environment, East St. Louis, if
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: anybody does their research. But she escaped that and got
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: focused and disciplined. And when she passed away, she had
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: built a million-dollar net worth through discipline and ownership. Just
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: the thing I'm telling you. And there's now my own
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: AI agent out there called Juanita AI. that has been
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: pioneered and launched by Operation Hope in August of 2026,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: that is now available to every striving, thriving person out there,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: certainly a black woman who wants to relate, download and
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: open Juanita AI. And you can talk to my mother
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: and ask her these questions about how does she buy
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: a house? How does she deal with domestic abuse? How
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: does she deal with a lack of aspiration, lack of
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: history of wealth creation? How does she make a million
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: dollar net worth on a $ 15 to $ 18 an hour
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: income and raise Mara Hoskin, my sister, and Donnie, Dave
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Darnell Harris, my brother, and me successfully, even when divorcing
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: my father, Johnny Will Smith. How did she do it?
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: You can now go to Hope AI, sorry, Juanita AI,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: which is part of Hope AI, and get some answers.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: So let me contrast now two families on the same
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn street decades ago. One owns property, the other rents.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: When property values appreciate, their economic outcomes diverge dramatically. Dramatically, dramatically, dramatically.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about your majesty, which is I think one
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: of the kids in the Jackson family, excuse me for
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: that crazy replacement thought. But the economic outcomes diverge dramatically.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Let me explain the difference between income, equity, appreciation, cashflow,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: and net worth. I've already talked about what happened when
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: I built the Promise Homes Company and how these values increase.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: If you don't own something in a growing economy, you
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: risk watching everybody else's wealth grow around you. And some
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: people feel resentment around that. And that's why when I
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: had the Promise Homes Company, I sold it. I'm still
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: a minor shareholder. We're trying to get out of it
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: right now. I'm doing something else with CIM Group now,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: but I sold that in 2021 for nine figures. But
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: we gave free financial literacy to all the residents, the renters.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: We So we contracted with Operation Hope to give everybody
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: free financial literacy. We did incentives for paying your rent
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: on time. And we gave you incentives going from rent
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: to own. We actually had some rent to own success stories.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: So actually one was written up in the Wall Street Journal.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: We very importantly had half of our vendors that were
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: black and minority and women from the neighborhoods where we
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: did business because I wanted to recycle that revenue back.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: We had to pay for anyway, plumbing, heating, electrical, landscaping, roofing.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: maintenance expense. Why not do that with vendors qualified from
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood? That way people don't resent you being an
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: owner in the community. So we just were recycling those
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: dollars and participating and partnering with the local community, the
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: local government. And it became a very, a virtual circle
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: and a very positive experience. And I was just speaking
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: into cap County for Lorraine Johnson, the CEO there, who's
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: fabulous last week for their economic summit. Yes, I'm on tour.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: And she said at one point I was the largest
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: taxpayer in DeKalb County. And by the way, the black
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: audience gave an applause for that because they realized that
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: that meant that I was an investor of substance in DeKalb.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: That was a green move, not a black move. So
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: no need to feel resentment, right? Everybody says they hate,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: not everybody. A lot of folks say they hate rich people. No,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: you don't. You hate rich people until you become rich.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: What you hate is a game system. So let's un-game
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: the system. Here's the business plan for urban America, okay?
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Here are six practical strategies to transform your neighborhood revitalization
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: into community wealth creation. This is part of what I
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: said in Detroit and the other places I was, but
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: specifically to the Detroit City Council. Number one, build credit
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: and financial capability. Expand access to credit coaching like Operation
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: Hope inside the platform to banking, You want major banks
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: to commit to your area because that is like the
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: venture capitalist for your community. And you have a chance
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: to get prime credit, single digit prime credit from a
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: major bank who has requirements to be fair to you.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: And that capital, because all communities have grown up and
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: billionaires and millionaires and cities and companies with good debt,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: tying your debt to something, prime debt to something that
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: appreciates or could appreciate in value. Don't finance bad debt.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: jewelry and all that kind of crap. You want to
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: say it's good debt, but you want to access it.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: So banking, credit counseling, financial education through models such again
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: as Operation Hope and Hope AI coming with AI literacy.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Number two, expand resident homeownership. You want to get your
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: mayor and your county officials to adopt this formally, and
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: we can work with them at Operation Hope if they
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: want to do a partnership with us. Expand resident homeownership.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Use responsible mortgage financing, down payment assistance, which often many
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: banks and city housing authorities have available to you, and
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: affordable ownership opportunities to do this. The average home ownership
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: rate for black America is low, less than 44%. The
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: national average for white America, mainstream America, is 75%. There's
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: a reason it's 75%, because the number one way you
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: build wealth in America is home ownership. Get that through
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: your head. Three things have never gone down in American history. GDP,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: gross domestic product of America, the income of the country,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: real estate values, and the stock market value. They go up.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: There's a recession. There may be one coming, by the way,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: in 2027. So hold on, snap in, and buckle up.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: But rainbows only follow storms. You cannot have a rainbow
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: without a storm first. So don't run away from a problem.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Run through it with preparation and pick up the opportunities
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: that are going to follow around you if you're prepared
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: with a good credit score and a little bit of
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: money and a little bit of bravery and a belief
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: that tomorrow will be better than today. So You want
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: to understand there's a recession that's going to dip values,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: but then it'll correct and reset every time above the line.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: They were giving properties away in Texas during the 2000
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: economic crisis. Don't trust me. Check it out. Giving away
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: properties in many cities. Those properties are now worth six figures, right?
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: But some people at the time were like, no, I
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: don't want to touch that. No, no. You want to
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: be all over that because unless the world's coming to
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: an end, in which case, just talk to God. Don't
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: talk about anything else. Just talk to God and hope
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: you can get into heaven. But unless the world's coming
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: to an end, the economies will reset. And when they
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: reset and recover, it will recover above the line. And
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: you want to be part of the people riding that
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: wave back up. So buy something you can afford. Don't
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: buy mansions. Buy something, the worst house on the best block,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: hood adjacent, and around thriving, growing communities with good credit
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: so you get the best terms available, fixed rate loan.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: And you've got to live somewhere. So buy a house. Buy,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: don't rent. even if I'm a landlord, I'm saying, you know, fine,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: rent from me for a time, but don't rent from
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: me forever. Move up, move out, go buy a house
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: and do not sell, okay? So expand homeownership opportunities is
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: number two. Number three, protect existing residents. Support housing stability,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: anti-displacement policies from your local and county and state governments,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: down payment assistance programs and affordable ownership opportunities. Number three
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: is supporting housing stability, anti- displacement policies and the measures
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: that help long-term homeowners manage rising costs. That's number three.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Number four, create community investment opportunities. Explore community land trusts,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: shared equity models, and resident participation in local developments. Number
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: four is create community investment opportunities. Number five, help local
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: entrepreneurs acquire businesses and commercial properties. Move beyond simply opening
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: a small startup business that may fail, by the way,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: with little capital and no customers, to owning enduring economic assets,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: existing businesses that are already proven in your neighborhood. The
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: dentist is a business, people. And if that owner is 65,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: he wants to go play golf. Buy it from him.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: And I can help you structure. I can go to
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: another one of my podcasts. I help you. I explain
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: how to buy these assets and structure them in a
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: way that the bank and even the seller of that
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: property that built that business will help you. Number six,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: measure neighborhood wealth, not just development activity. Track resident net worth,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: credit scores, home ownership levels, business ownership, displacement levels, and
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: wealth retention. And I guarantee if you do what I'm
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: telling you You're going to find that the so-called gentrification,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: five years when you start this experiment, includes the come
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: up of the people in the community. And now no
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: one's trying to blame Jay-Z or anybody else for some craziness.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: I know my time's coming when you're blaming me for something.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: My God, can we just get on with it? Stop
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: wasting our time. Challenge developers, financial institutions, philanthropy, government, and
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: community leaders. to align around these shared outcomes. Don't just
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: measure how many millions of dollars were invested in a neighborhood.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Measure how many millionaires, homeowners, and successful entrepreneurs were created
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: from the people already living in these neighborhoods. So I'm
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: sort of running out of time. I got to run
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: through the rest of this quicker. And the third reconstruction
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: begins in our neighborhood people. The first reconstruction was freedom.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: I've done a podcast covering this. It's in my book,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: the capitalism for all, by the way. First Reconstruction was freedom,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Second Reconstruction was access, Dr. King,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Ambassador Andrew Young, Credit Scott King, Dr. Dorothy Haidt, all
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: the heroes and sheroes about access to jobs, polling booths, buildings, facilities,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: cashing the check. The third Reconstruction is ownership, and that's
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: from civil rights to civil rights. It's going on right
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: now from 2024 to 2034, in my opinion. And it's
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: from the streets to the suites. That's the whole discussion here, right?
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: That's the current argument for capitalism for all my book.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: That's why I want you to read it. It's 200
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: pages of math. Quote my friend Melody Hobson. We like
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: math because it doesn't have an opinion. The first reconstruction, again,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: was about freedom. Second reconstruction was about civil rights and access.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: The third reconstruction must expand ownership and economic participation. Agency,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: personal agency, and ownership is the key. Forget making that dollar.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Make money during the day. Don't forget about it, but
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: it's overrated. You make the dollar during the day, you
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: build wealth in your sleep. You make money during the day,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: you build wealth in your sleep. So let's discuss the
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: relationship now between credit, neighborhood opportunity, investment, and generational wealth.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: A 700 credit score community should represent more than better
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: credit scores. It should represent stronger households, optimism, hope, beliefs, faith, confidence,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: better health, More ownership, more entrepreneurship, greater financial resiliency, greater participation.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: The glass is half full, not half empty. You live
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: 20 years longer. Just that one note alone is a bar,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: that you live 20 years longer in a 700 credit
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: score neighborhood than a 500 credit score neighborhood. I shouldn't
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: have to say much else. People say they don't have money. No, yes,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: you do. You make $ 35, 000 a year. You have three children.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: Government owes you through the earned income tax credit $ 7, 500
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: just about in a refund. from EITC. That's right. And
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: 20 billion people never even claim it every year. That's
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: your money. We're protesting everything else. Where's the protest for
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: EITC or the march for EITC to get everybody their
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: earned income tax credit check, right? And if you never filed,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: it's retroactive for as much as three years. So if
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: you make $ 35, 000 a year, that $ 20, 000, almost $ 20, 000 check
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: is the most money you'd ever seen one time. You
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: use that money to go pay down your those expensive
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: credit cards, pay off that car loan. Better yet, put
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: a down payment on a $ 100, 000 house in a neighborhood
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: you can afford in an emerging market, second tier, growing community. Buy, sit,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: and hold. Okay? So you say you don't have any money,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: you make $ 35, 000 a year, but you go to Starbucks
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: twice a week. Well, simple math, that's about $ 3, 000 a year.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Go get your Keurig machine, right, for 150 bucks. That's
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: what I use. And make your own coffee. You're also
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: smoking cigarettes twice, several times a week. Well, the box
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: says this stuff's going to kill you, right? That's not
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: enough motivation for you. Probably spending $ 3, 000 a year on cigarettes.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: So that's $ 6, 000 a year for those two things, $ 35, 000
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: of annual income in this example. That's almost 20% of
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: your annual income. Two ways to make money, make more,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: spend less. Just stop smoking and stop going to, I'm
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: not hating on Starbucks. I like Starbucks, but Stop going
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: to a gourmet coffee shop unless you can afford it.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: Go get your Keurig machine and make it at home.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about, you know, civil rights helped us to
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: gain access to the American dream, yes. Civil rights must
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: help us own a meaningful piece of it. If you're
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: not at the table, you're on the menu. Expand the table,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: to quote my friend Stephanie Ruhl, and add a chair. Now,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: let's talk about closing the gap. Don't stop with the
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: next Brooklyn. And don't stop the next Brooklyn. Don't stop
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: with the next Brooklyn, right? In other words, don't just
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: think about what's coming next. What other Brooklyn can I
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: move to and rent from? Because whatever major city, New York,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: New York, it used to be Manhattan, now it's Brooklyn, LA.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: You can move in these cities, you can make some
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: cash flow, you probably won't build any wealth because the
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: upside has already been claimed by somebody else who took
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: a dream, who took a risk on that dream when
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: the prices were low before the prices, the values went high.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: So now you got to find a new dream for
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: you to bank on. You can make some money in
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: the Brooklins and the New Yorks and the L.A.s, but
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: you probably won't build much wealth. Again, go to my
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: podcast where I say money is overrated, and I explain that.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: I spend an hour explaining that. So don't stop for
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: the next Brooklyn. Own the upside of the next Brooklyn.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Here's what I want people to understand. I don't want
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: to stop Brooklyn from becoming prosperous. I don't want to
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: stop Detroit from growing. I don't want to stop investment
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, or South Central Los Angeles. I
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: want those neighborhoods to thrive, and you should too. But
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: I want the people who built those communities to have
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: a shot to thrive with them. I want the grandmother
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: who's lived on that block for 40 years to be
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: able to stay there, and or grandchildren. I want her
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: children to become homeowners. I want her grandchildren to own
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: businesses and commercial buildings and pieces of that new economy.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: I want the investors who come in to these neighborhoods
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: to see longtime residents not as obstacles to progress, but
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: as partners in prosperity. Because the real tragedy isn't that
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: our neighborhoods are becoming valuable. It's too many of our
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: people haven't had the opportunity to own the value that
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: got created. That's what we need to change. Don't hate
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: the players, hate the game and change it. And the
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: best way, the best revenge is success. The color of
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: gentrification isn't black or white. It isn't red or blue.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: It's green. And it's always been green. And it's time
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: that green worked for everyone. So, look, there's so much
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about here, and I'm going to
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: do a separate podcast that dives deep into this whole
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: capitalism is, you know, an extraction is a negative, extraction
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: is activity. Look, everything is extraction, people. You know, you're
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: raising your children. You've invested in them. You're trying to
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: extract from them the promise that they're going to be,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: you know, that their promise tomorrow is going to be
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: better for them than your future was today or yesterday.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: You want them to work hard, play by the rules,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: do the right thing, make you proud. That's extraction. You're
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: extracting from them an investment, a promise, a future promise
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: of an investment based on what you gave to them.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: That's extraction. You know, you go to the, you know,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: you get your hair done and you're extracting from that
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: hairstylist talent to make sure they don't mess up your hair.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: You want to use all the talent they've got to
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: make you look good in an hour or less, right?
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: They've been training for 10 years or 20 years to
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: make you look good in an hour. And you're willing
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: to pay for that talent, so they're extracting from you compensation,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: all right? And capitalism basically is a table. One person
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: is trying to, the producer is trying to extract as
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: much from you as they can while giving you the
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: least amount of value for that product, okay? So they
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: make a profit. And you, the consumer, are trying, in
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: this example, you're the consumer, you're trying to extract the
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: maximum amount of value out of that producer for the
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: least amount of payment. The capitalist is doing their job
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: and the consumer is doing their job if they're financially literate.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: And every good negotiation is where everybody leaves the table
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: slightly annoyed. Because there is no perfect, people. And nobody
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: got everything they want out of that negotiation. Knock it off.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: Stop being emotional. And own this knowledge and get in
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: this game before the game passes you by. It reminds
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: me of, God rest his soul, Jesse Jackson told me
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: once that he said that there was these two hobos
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: and they both got kicked off the train for non-payment.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: And one of the hobos said, and I'm so mad
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: at this train. I'm so upset with them kicking me off.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: buy the whole train system. And the other hobo looked
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: at him and said, yeah, I'm so mad. I'm with you.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to sell it to you. And both of
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: them so broke they can't pay attention. You hang around
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: nine broke people, you'll be the 10th. Right? So America
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: needs a new urban development model, people, that converts neighborhood
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: appreciation to community wealth creation, where everybody has a shot
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: to participate in the upside. And I think we need,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to do a whole podcast on this,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: I think we need a Black Jewish business plan. And yes,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: I said it. They have been brilliant at taking, I mean,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: they've been chased all around the world for thousands of years.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: They only... you know, my God, two or 3% of
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: the U S population and 40% of the billionaires, no
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: one gave them anything. They, they, but they have masters
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: in financial literacy, generally speaking as a group of people,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: but what they've done is they've done business with a
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: whole economy. They live amongst everybody. You can't really target
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: them unless you really are focusing on them. No one
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: should talk to anybody, but I'm just showing you their brilliance.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: They get, they do business with everybody in all kinds
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: of industries. And then they bring that wealth they created
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: back in their community and create local schools and local,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: you know, synagogues and houses of worship and, daycares and
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: community centers and support their philanthropy and nonprofits and blah, blah, blah.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: And they should. And what black communities should do is
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: go become prosperous everywhere. Okay. Because we're similarly only 45
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: million people amongst 350 million people in America. So we're
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: not majority. Go become prosperous everywhere you find black people.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: You see a black person, you go, oh my God,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: that's an entrepreneur or a business owner or a builder.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: I know that's a good bet. Who that black person is.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: I know just like people say about generally speaking, Asians
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: or Indians or something like that, right? From India, people
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: from India. They typecast them. You want somebody to typecast you,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: my God, you know that's a good bet because people
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: invest in people, not companies. Okay, that's a good bet.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to back that person in whatever they're doing.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: And then you take that income, that wealth creation, and
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: you turn back to your communities, right? And you invest
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: in your local institutions, wherever you find community, wherever you
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: care about for people who can't become the wealth creators,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: that's not their role in life, They're senior citizens. They're
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: the elderly. They're people who maybe just don't have that ambition.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: But you can help them and protect them. But you
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: can't do anything broke. And the model I just gave
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: you is a different model than the model of the
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: 19th to 20th century people keep talking about, where there
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: was a community that was expendable, unfortunately, because it was
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: a minority of a minority and a majority of a
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: majority community. And the majority community did not need Black
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: people to succeed. In fact, they were intimidated by it,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: threatened by it. That's not today, people. Read my book,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: Capitalism for All. Black and brown people are a majority
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: and minority in this country within 10 years. And there's
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: more people over age 65, under age 18. And they
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: all want to go play golf at the same time.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Who's going to replace them? Who's going to replace these
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: economic engines? It has to be you. It has to
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: be us. And our threat is not each other, people.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Stop it. Knock it off. Our threat is China, Russia, Iran,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: and North Korea, who want our way of life. But
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: they can't win in a fair fight. They only win
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: if we're kicking each other in the chins and shooting
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: each other in the foot and arguing with each other.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: And the Bible says a house divided cannot stand. So
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: hurt people, hurt people. And everybody wants to be an American,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: but Americans, can we please knock it off? All right,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: John O'Brien, I'm out. I hope you've enjoyed this hour.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: Let me know what you think on the comments. When
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: you see these clips on social media, I wish podcasts
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: had places for people to comment. I'd love you to
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: give comments in the podcast episode itself so I could
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: see them, but maybe that will come in the future. Hey,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: that's an idea for podcast innovators. Put comment sections on
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: the audio podcast so people can weigh in right then
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: and there wherever they were listening to their podcast. Tell
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: all your friends about Money and Wealth. Tell them to subscribe.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: I spend an hour every week going deep on a
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: topic I think that's important to you to unpack it
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: so you understand it, demystify it. And then we take
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: pieces of this and put them in clips and you'll
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: see them on social media trying to break this stuff down.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: And there you can comment and give me ideas of
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: what else you want me to talk about. John O'Brien,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: Money and Wealth. I'm out. Let's go change the world
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: and be the change we want to see in the world.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: I love you. Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more
• 1:03:21
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• 1:03:26
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