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October 2008
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How Wall Street Committed Financial Suicide
Are you still confused about sub-prime mortgages, the credit crunch, and the government bailout? How could Wall Street's financial geniuses lose $500 billion on investment products they created?
Portrait of The Black Economy 2007
How much are Black Americans worth? How many of us have college degrees? What percentage of Blacks do not have a bank account or health insurance? How do you compare?
Oil and Gasoline Prices 101 The price of gasoline has increased more than 150 percent in the last five years, learn how gas prices work and determine who's to blame?
Got Financial Intelligence?
Ask yourself, are you financially educated, financially literate, or financially intelligent? It's not a trick question, Please allow me to school you on the differences between the three.
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Are Blacks Ready for a Black President?
“Although it seems heaven sent, we ain’t ready...for a black president”
Tupac Shakur, I Wonder if Heaven Got a Ghetto
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were roughly 24 million Black Americans of voting age in 2004. However, there were only 16 million black registered voters, and only 14 million of those actually voted in the 2004 presidential election. Are we really ready for a black President? I hope our voter registrations will set records this year and everyone who can vote will vote. Unfortunately, it is too late to register for the 2008 presidential election, but for those who are registered, this will be the most important election of their lives.
Black Americans rank last in net worth, income, self-employment, and homeownership, while first in poverty, unbanked (without bank accounts), incarceration, HIV cases, and unemployment. Most of it is the result of centuries of racism and discrimination that destroyed the black family, restricted wealth creation and prohibited education. As a result in the new millennium, it is now mostly ignorance, lack of self-respect and too much “keepin’ it real.” Are we really ready for a black President? What we must understand is that the rich get richer because the rich VOTE and also use their wealth to lobby or influence politicians to keep making laws that will benefit them and their children.
Whenever other races in America have been discriminated against or could not play on the same economic level, they chose to become entrepreneurs. But to become business owners in Capitalist America, it takes start up capital or wealth, so now we are back to where we started – how do Black Americans obtain capital to start a business and build wealth, and use it to influence politicians who can create laws that allow the black community to prosper?
The Jews, Italians, and more recently Asians, organized their people, started businesses, accumulated wealth and bought front row seats to the game of American politics. There are roughly 5.5 million Jewish people in the U.S. (2% of the U.S. population), yet they have effectively been able to influence government by organizing their people to vote in high turnouts, creating respectable political entities like (AIPAC) and spending about $50 million a year on lobbying for Pro-Israel issues, in which they receive roughly $3 billion annually from the federal government. Compare that to the 38 million Black Americans (13% of the U.S. population), who spend less than $5 million annually on lobbying and as a result have to sit in the “nose bleed” sections of business and politics. Are we really ready for a black President?
Have you wondered how Asians are able to set up beauty supply shops, and convenience stores on every corner in the black community? Maybe its because they have obtained over $15 billion of the outstanding $85 billion in Small Business Administration Loans (SBA) since 2000, while blacks have received less than $3 billion during the same time period. This is either because we don’t know these loans exist or we simply don’t qualify for them because they require good credit, business plans, capital, and collateral.
So there has never been a better time for blacks to build and maintain good credit and save money to accumulate wealth in hopes of starting a business or part-time hustle. Are we really ready for a black President who is planning to invest $250 million per year to increase the number and size of business incubators in disadvantaged communities throughout the country? These business incubators allow beginning entrepreneurs to develop and grow their new businesses, but this won’t have much of an impact if the people in those communities do not have a business plan or idea ready to go.
Are we really ready for a black President, because if Obama is elected, other races are going to start claiming that racism and discrimination no longer exist in America, and affirmative action is no longer needed because if a black man can become President of the United States, then other blacks can become successful if they work hard enough.
Are we really ready for a black President, because although we have always dominated and set the trends in sports, music, fashion and entertainment, the whole world is going to be watching and holding us accountable for our cultural issues. They want to see if we are going to develop and prosper as a people or continue to complain even though we have a black President.
So get ready, work your “9 to 5” if you have to, but create a part-time hustle to accumulate wealth. Become financially intelligent by reading, studying and practicing business and financial skills. Also, remember everyone does not begin at the same start line in the Game of American Capitalism. You start your financial life where your parents left off, so learn how to invest your money and teach your kids as early as possible so that when you transfer your wealth to the next generation it will continue to grow and every black family will continue to prosper. We must also continue voting until we get better seats in the “Game of American politics.”
If we can’t obtain seats in American politics to help level the economic playing field, we must obtain economic power so we can just purchase part of the field. At that point we won’t need affirmative action because we will have something more powerful-- financial freedom and financial independence. And so the answer to the question of Are we really ready for a black President? -- Hell yeah, we better be!
 Create Wealth, Enjoy Life! 
James "Bird" Guess
President & Founder
TheBlackEconomy.com
staff@theblackeconomy.com
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