After watching this movie I had an epiphany.  That movie is “The Wizard of lies” by Robert De Niro. The movie is about Enron, basically the journey of Bernie Madoff. I must say Robert Deniro did a very good job. In one scene Bernie Madoff (played by Robert De Niro) was being questioned about his deeds, this is what he said, “people are greedy”. it is interesting that he said that, it is almost as if he knows what is deep in the subconsciousness of people.  As if to say people let their greed get the best of them. The rule of thumb is, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. 

        One of the root causes of the problem is the difference between gambling and investing. For starters we must understand how money works, the value of money, what gives it value, and the stock market. More often than not when people say they are telling us about investing, they are usually telling us about gambling… and to convince us to gamble with our money. ( not theirs)

According to the oxford dictionary, investing is expending money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result,  gambling is playing a game of chance. Just from the definition alone, we can differentiate between the two, another definition of investments that I personally like is “buying assets that increase in value. Investment does take time but the problem is when the lines are blurred and we have some sweet talker telling us we would be millionaires overnight.  Many are told they are investing when in actual fact they are gambling. This is not to say there isn’t any risk involved, all investments carry some sort of risk, hell everything we do carries some sort of risk, it is up to us to assess the level of risk involved and how much risk we are comfortable with.  I’m not telling anyone what to do, if you like gambling go for it, but at least we should know which is which, the line between gambling and investing is very thin and we must all spend time doing research because money is a little difficult to come by, especially in these times. If you don’t understand what you are being told, please don’t spend grandma’s retirement money, and don’t “gamble with your 401k.

A lot didn’t understand what was going on in the crypto world, yet they were convinced they would make money, and we all saw what happened.

This brings me to my topic.  Today I’m talking about the World Economic Forum. an event that takes place every year. Let me enlighten you. The World Economic Forum is a meeting of the most powerful people in the world, of course with power comes influence and money.  This event as I stated already, happens every year at a place called Davos, in Switzerland. They meet and decide world policy. Every influencer be it an actor, people in positions of power, or just plain rich, etc has been to the World Economic Forum in Davos at one time or another.  Arent we curious to know what happens there?? This isn’t a conspiracy theory, and it is hardly a secret at all,  they release a report of their meetings every year, and this year’s report is about 100 pages.  .  Anyone can get a report of these yearly meetings if they so choose, it’s no secret at all.  The World Economic Forum even has a website where people can go and read whatever information they want.  Again these people shape Global policy. 

my question is if these people are the ones responsible for current events in today’s world. why arent we more informed about this??? informed enough to ask questions ??

At the end of the day we are more concerned with things we cannot control, and those things become our natural opium, we are not concerned about policy and where these people are taking the world, some of these powerful people were elected by their nations.

People like

Brad Pitt

Angelina Jolie

Jeff Bezos

Jack Ma

Donald Trump

Will-I AM

Matt Damon

Richard Gere

Condoleezza Rice

George Bush

Joe Biden

Hillary Clinton

Bono

Leonardo Dicarprio

John Kerry

Pharrell

Forest Whitaker

Bill Gates

Barack Obama

Just to name a few, just anyone who is someone in this world has been to Davos, our own black billionaires have been there, these people shape global policy yet we hardly know that this meeting takes place. I think we should do a better job of being and staying informed. I’m not here to give anyone a history lesson, I’m asking the question of us being more informed about world affairs. Today we have no excuse.

As black people we say we believe in so-called White supremacy,  well the first thing about white supremacy is that it is Global and international, if anyone thinks I’m lying all they have to do is look at the institution of slavery, slavery was international, it is almost as if there was an international coordination,  and also an international coordination when it was abolished. Other examples are Wall Street, trading, etc. Everything happens globally, the world is too vast and broad for us to limit ourselves to one country. International Affairs is a must.

THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE, PLEASE DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH

There is a reason for such a title,  we expect to be told everything in school, till this day most people will base their inability to think on the school they went to rather than their experience and inability to recognize an opportunity.  Most people who have made it or are on the way to making it took advantage of opportunities that came their way or created opportunities for themselves. Sometimes when there are no opportunities available.  I will mention a few names in the course of this article.   The way we think makes a very big difference in how we act and perceive a lot of things.

Like most of my articles in recent times this will be a  short article but very thought-provoking,  I wonder why we think that because certain things are not taught in our schools, that equates to us not succeeding in our endeavors, ask any business owner will tell you, they prefer experience over degrees, they prefer people with the ability to complete a certain task rather than them wasting money to show them around. Businessmen will rather hire people who can think on their feet rather than ask for thought assistance every minute.

Let us begin,  the first question we should be asking is, what practical knowledge do we possess? Most of the knowledge we possess isn’t practical,  because more often than not we like to or should I say we love history but don’t make use of it,  This is what I mean….

Take someone like Reginald F Lewis, Most people of today couldn’t tell you who he is or was.  but he was the first black man to build a Billion dollar business, it wasn’t being done before him, note that I said the first black man/person to build a billion-dollar business, I never said the first black billionaire.  I think everyone should read about this man, and then see how he was able to do something that was unheard of at that time, sadly people like him are not with us anymore.

Bernard S Garret SR,  was the first black man/person to own a bank and was actually controlling white banks, this is a man with an 11th-grade education, and more importantly, he did it in the era of Jim crow, yet he was able to outsmart people who were college-educated, he was one of the wealthiest black men of his time.  He had a partner in a business called Joseph B Morris who was already a successful businessman.  Bernard S Garret was very good at math and we know as engineers and mathematicians, problem-solving skills are a must, so he looked at what was against him and said hmmm how do I solve this?   He did it, and it is because of him certain laws were changed, brothers and sisters, most of the time we ask what can be done for us when life is all about figuring out how to solve certain problems.

Before I end this who remembers thriller by Michael Jackson,  well fun fact, in the 80s black people were not given fair play on MTV, he came up with a video that was so good, that they had no choice but to show it on MTV,  you know you created something when white children gathered around their TV to watch Thriller,  The difference between these people and us today is that they didn’t know “it” couldn’t be done!

“The only time a man is really rich is when he controls money”- Bernard S Garret SR

By Anthony Mills and Jesus Kotei

It may interest people to know that the Blacks in America have more spending power than the entire GDP of these countries

1. Netherlands = $907.05 Billion
2. Saudi Arabia = $792.97 Billion
3. Switzerland = $703.08 Billion
4. Thailand = $543.55 Billion
5. Poland = $595.86 Billion

Just to let everyone know there is no course in business school titled, “how to be a millionaire” As black people we need to take financial education seriously, otherwise, money will just pass through our hands  

“Unless you are able to have influence over assets and business and enterprises then you are not really participating in a lot of what the American economy is “ – Robert F Smith

1. Jeff Bezos, Amazon  Net worth $154.2 Billion, drives a Honda Accord  Base Model  Price $16,000
2. Sergey Brin co-founder of Google, Net worth  $54.2 Billion drives a Toyota Prius, price $ 30,000.
3. Larry Page  Co-founder  of Google, Net worth $55.5 Billion drives a Toyota Prius, Price $30,000
4. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Net worth $64.6 Billion drives an Acura TSX price of 30,000.00, he also has a Volkswagen Golf GTI hatchback
5. Number 5 for me takes the cake, he may not be living with us anymore but he understood that a car is only meant to get you from point A to point B, This man was the founder of Ikea and he died in 2018, which means he could afford any of the nice things we see. With a Networth of almost $60 Billion he can buy any car he wanted, his name is Ingvar Kamprad. He drove a 1993 Volvo 240 GL until his death!!

I think we can learn a thing or two, from these guys, they understand money very well !!!! we should be learning from them

.

What did our president say ?  ” Most of the price increase was expected”  in a way he is right, economists warned that prices will increase due to inflation which is due to excessive money printing! ( I will keep saying this)  Groceries are up, gas prices are up.  You don’t need me to tell you that, something is very very wrong here.   It is difficult to make ends meet in this economy, especially since we are technically still in a pandemic.  The truth is we need to tell this administration and every other administration, that overspending is not the answer, we cannot spend our way out of debt with borrowed money,  and also people are now used to staying home and making more than they were when they were working, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to say, ” hey I will rather stay home since I’m making more money” . 

       Now, this is directed at my people, it is time we stop looking for a savior to lead us out of an economic crisis, only we can do that for ourselves.  We need to educate ourselves on real economics, not pseudo internet economics.  We need to learn basic accounting to teach us how to put our “coins” together.  As for the politicians, I don’t think we should keep on listening to them if they are not telling us about the impact of their economic policies, example, if the money printing is too much, we should be able to say something instead of expecting free money from the government, guys, there is no such thing as free money, the only free money is when any of us are lucky enough to win the lottery!!!! . I think if anyone feels the pinch we should all say something. 

      With all these stimulus checks coming in ( which was started by the Trump administration), any economist will tell you the results of giving out “FREE” money.  Economics is usually based on mathematics and numbers which is why we can’t trust our politicians when it comes to numbers.  They didn’t even adjust the stimulus for inflation. Guys, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

As I research financial recessions and depressions, I noticed one thing,  there is a lot of start-up capital being offered by the banks.   A lot of businesses were started during depressions.    So in every recession lies an opportunity to start a business or start something new, they call this the great reset. . we all know that one big part of stimulating the economy is making a lot of loans for small business,   startups, and businesses that want to make a come back. below is a  list of companies that were started during recessions.

1. Burger King, ( was started in the 1950s)
2. Microsoft ( was started during the 1970’s financial recession, was actually started in 1974-75)
3. Fed Ex ( Started in 1971)
4. Trader Joe ( 1958)
5. General Electric ( 1892)
6. General Motors (1908)
7. IBM (1911)
8. Disney (1929)
9. HP (1939)
10. MailChimp ( I’m sure most people are family with this, well it was started during the 2001 recession)
11. Uber ( this is very common, it was started during the 2007 recession)
12. Groupon ( 2008 recession

My friends, seem like in every recession there is an opportunity to rebuild, and start something new don’t get left out.. and don’t get used to receiving stimulus money just to pay your build.

Note that it doesn’t really matter which president is in office, the main thing the feds know how to do is print money, which they have done in almost every recession.

disclaimer: This is not financial/investment advice. Nothing contained in this website should be construed as investment advice