How Money Works

In this episode, John breaks down how money works and ranks different countries in order of their market values.

 

To learn more about John's Operation Hope initiative, visit: https://operationhope.org/how-we-help/credit-money-management/

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome the Money in Wealth with John Hobryant, a production
of The Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Yeah, I'm
quickly becoming a Mike Apps fan. Here my brother comes
again with some straight talk like real wisdom. This is

(00:22):
John Hobriant talking about money and wealth as also mindset.
This is about getting your mind right because whether you
believe you can or you believe you can't, you're absolutely right.
Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
As I said repeatedly, and I'm gonna pound it into
your brain. If you hang around nine broke people, I

(00:43):
guarantee you you'll be the tenth. Your environment matters. And
Mike Epps talks some truth. Look a lot of black people,
African Americans in particular. I'm gonna do a whole podcast
on Blacks and Africans, Blacks and Caribbeans, African American blacks
and Caribbean blacks, and African American and African African blacks
because we are all from the same root of the

(01:05):
same tree. In fact, all human beings are from Africa,
but the cultural differences matter because of our experiences are different.
All that matters and changes the endorphins in our brain,
and some of us are in a suburhriving mindset, some
of us are in a thriving and some of us
are in a winning and building mindset. So for those
who are in a surviving mindset who grew up in

(01:26):
the hood, Mike EPs is talking about that experience, and
I can relate to a growing up in Comptin, California,
in south central Los Angeles, Mike is talking about. You know,
folks are not necessarily rooting for your success because a
lot of us are depressed. Real talk now here that
maybe seventy eighty percent this that I cannot confirm this
to be a fact. I'm just telling you seventy eight
percent of black people before the pandemic African Americans. I

(01:49):
think we're clinically undiagnosed depressed. And you can be the
most loving person in the world. But if I'm depressed,
I don't like me. So if I don't like me,
I'm not gonna like you. If I don't feel good
about me, I'm not gonna feel goo you. If I
don't respect me, don't expect me to respect you. If
I don't love me, I don't have a clue how
to love you, and if I don't have a purpose
in my life, I'm gonna make your life a living hell.

(02:11):
Whatever goes around comes around. And Mike is talking about
growing up in the community community he's now helped to
revide lies reinvested in, and he's talking about experiences he's
had where folks are not necessarily happy about his success.
They love it when he fails. They love it when
he's on drugs. They love when coming back off of drugs.
They love it when he's down. They love it when

(02:33):
he's had some kind of something that's befalling in his life.
He's tripped and fail and he's not feeling good. They're like, oh, man,
come on, man, I'm with you brother. It mis gets
you back on track because they can relate to his pain,
but they cannot relate to his gain. They're not rooting
for him when he's doing well. They're like, Man, you
sold out. What the heck does that mean? Man? You're

(02:54):
talking like you white? What the heck does that mean?
It's English, you're talking Japanese. You're speaking Japanese or you're not.
When you're speaking Spanish, you're either speaking Spanish or you're
not speaking Russian, either speaking Russian or you're not speaking French.
You're either speaking French or you're not. When you're speaking English,
you're either speaking English or you're not. When you're speaking capitalism,

(03:15):
same thing applies. So what I don't understand this craziness right,
Like you can be bilingual, I can be down with
my community in the streets and able to cut a
business deal in the suites. You better be able to
do that or you're going to be broke. Real talk,
And I'm not trying to hang around a bunch of
broke people and other than to visit maybe my neighborhood

(03:35):
and try to inspire them to be better, to try
to inspire them to come up from nothing. My last
book up from Nothing of a new book coming out
soon called Financial Literacy for All, which is a civil
rights issue with this generation. But I want to inspire
you to come up. But I'm not trying to sit
around and let that toxicity jump on me, that depression
jump on me. Just real talk, like I'm not trying

(03:56):
to hang around people who are bringing me down. I
can't guarantee you it being positive is gonna make you
a success, but I absolutely guarantee you that being negative
will make you fail. And nobody wants to be around
somebody who's depressed and talking down all the time. We
want encouragement. Listen to my podcast on relationship, listen to

(04:16):
that episode and on marriage. If you're not better together,
two plus two does not equal more than four? What
are you doing? You can do that all by yourself.
So Mike is talking, real talking, He's pouring his heart out.
And we've got to admit that four hundred years of
well mostly forty years of being repressed in this country.
Certainly two hundred to three hundred years is being repressed

(04:37):
in this country as African Americans, and ill treatment until
the late twentieth century, structurally and legally has messed with
our head, mess with our heart, mess with our spirit.
And maybe we don't feel good about ourselves. And maybe
as a result of that we have crab in the barrel.
Maybe we're trying to bring other people's down. You can't
solve something unless you deal with it first. We are
a beautiful people. We've been doing so much with so

(04:57):
little for so long. We can almost do anything with nothing.
Over the rounded through it, We're going to get to
it like we are experts at surviving. But I don't
want you surviving. I want you thriving, all right. I
want you winning. I want you to be a winner builder.
I want you to have a mindset that says I
am somebody, and I want you to be somebody too.
If I'm talking positively about something about my successes and

(05:20):
I don't talk, I don't do it around a lot
of people because they don't want to hear it. I
know they don't want to hear it. They say they
what's going on? They don't really want to hear it
because see he just bragging. Now, who says that? Think about?
That's like crazy? Why wouldn't you just be saying, my god,
that's fantastic. Maybe that sence some encouragement for me. Maybe
I can learn from what's going on with what John's doing.

(05:41):
But I know that a lot of people. I hang
around a lot of people. I am around educated. This
is not poor people now, sorry, not financially poor people.
I'm talking about people who have done well, but psychologically
they're messed up. I can read people in a minute.
I can meet you in two minutes. I have read
your spirit, and I can tell whether whether you're a
hurt person or not, and whether you got attitude in
your bones or at least attitude in your head and your spirit,

(06:03):
and whether you mean me no good? You looking at me,
you're smiling, but really you're sneering underneath your breath because
oh John did Why Why is he success? Why is
he didn't go to the fraternity, He didn't go to
this college, He didn't do this, he didn't do that.
I paid these dues. He's not part of the club.
I don't want to be part of your club man.
I never sought membership in your club. I'm focused on

(06:25):
trying to get to my objective and I want to
bring you with me. Why don't you want to bring
me with you? Why don't you root for my success?
Irrespective of how I got it? Maybe you could learn
something from that. God gave us two ears and one mouth,
so we listened twice as much as we talk. But
hurt people, hurt people, just real talk. We have got
to move the toxicity out of our lives. God bless you.

(06:47):
Mike Epps. Keep going, brother, and I'm glad you are
sober now and you are speaking your truth. Hopefully all
this causes all of us in the black community to
begin to deal with our stuff. What is the church
in the black community in a low until black community,
an unofficial psychologists or shrink? It's our therapist. Oh you know,
I don't want to go to a therapist. Somebody might

(07:08):
think I'm crazy. If you're black in America and you
don't think you're crazy, you are actually a little crazy. Hey, hey,
this is John O'Brien. This is money and wealth. Don't

(07:29):
you just hate it when folks talk over your head
and you think it's silly to ask intelligent questions because
you think somebody's going to try to embarrass you or
think bad of you. There's no stupid questions. Look, God
gave you two ears in one mouth, so you listen

(07:50):
twice as much as you talk. So I want you
to ask Quincy Jones, a brother in a mentor of mine,
one of the impresarios of the world in music and entertainment,
the guy who essentially helped to create the global brand
of Michael Jackson and so many others. I asked his brother,

(08:10):
how'd you get so smart? He said, I'm just nosy
as hell. I want to know everything about everything. So
I want you nosy, right, Saint as the siner that
got up, just keep getting up, keep get asking questions.
So I knocks you down, get back up, take no
for vitamins, and never be embarrassed ever. So we're going
to unpack the economy. We're going to explain things that

(08:31):
people say to you and around you that you may
not have a clue about and you've just been too
uncomfortable to ask the question. But we live in a
free enterprise democracy. When you get up in the morning,
if your day's not about God or love, your days
about money. So it's all around you, but you're not
talking about it, you're not asking questions about it, because

(08:53):
maybe you're uncomfortable about it. So let's demystify it. Let's
explain how all this stuff works. Unpacking the economy. Here
we go. Take notes. Listen to this several times if
you must. It's the my ministry of finance. This is
my weekly pulpit breaking down how the economy in finance

(09:15):
and money and capitalism actually works. Just for you. We're
gonna be PhDs and pH ds to take notes. Take
this to your weekly fraternity and sorority meeting. Take this
podcast to your weekly discussion groups. Start a weekly Discussion
Group on Silver Rights SI l v E er not

(09:38):
protesting in the streets, but creating opportunity in the suites,
the business suites. As Malcolm X said, we've been bamboozled,
we've been tricked, We've been fooled. Let's stop that right now,
and here we go. There are over two hundred countries
in the world legitimate democracies, the lard Is economy in

(10:02):
the world. Amongst those democracies, about eight billion people, give
or take. The lard Is economy is the United States
of America. Somebody told you it's China. That is wrong.
Somebody lie and told you is Russia. Not even close.
It's just not even close. Russia is a a rounding

(10:23):
era from a GDP gross domestic products. You've heard that
phrase banted around, banted about GDP. GDP means gross domestic product. Basically,
think about the revenue. If you own a store, it's
the gross receipts, the gross economic output, gross economic activity

(10:46):
for your store or for your barbershop. It is your
income that comes into your household. You get it gross
domestic product. So if you have these two hundred plus
nations in the world creating about one hundred one hundred

(11:07):
and five trillion dollars of GDP gross domestic product estimated
for twenty twenty four. What are the largest economies? About
one hundred trillion dollars in twenty twenty three is projected
to be one hundred and five trillion thereabouts in twenty
twenty four. So I want you to guess. See if
you can figure this out. The first thing I think

(11:28):
people are you will definitely get wrong is that people
tell me all the time China is bigger than the
United States. Not true. They have the biggest population one
point five plus billion people. I think it's more than that,
but they have the second largest economy in the world
United States number one at twenty three trillion twenty four trillion.

(11:51):
Some people say it's twenty six trillion, but I'm gonna
give you conservative numbers. China about seventeen eighteen trillion, Germany
for trillion and chain, Japan four trade and change, India
three point seven trillion, United Kingdom that's Britain three point
three trillion, France three trillion, Italy two point two trillion,
Brazil to trade and change, Canada to trade and change,

(12:14):
and then it sort of goes on from there. I'm
sitting in the city of Atlanta, by the way, with
four hundred plus billion dollars in annual in GDP, it's
one of the largest economies in the world if it
was a country, the tenth largest economy in the United States.
Are you following me? So I'm giving you the basics

(12:35):
the global economy. It gave you that. I gave you
where the United States is. I told you even there's
about eight billion people, give our take, in the world.
I've now told you that the largest economies were. I
gave you the top ten of the large economies in
the world. Right, So, now let's break down the US
economy where most of my listeners live. So you have

(12:59):
as part of this economy three hundred and fifty million people,
give or take about thirty million plus businesses. Of those businesses,
how many of them have ten thousand employees or more? Well,
you have the fortune five hundred companies. You have about
one thousand companies with about ten thousand employees or more.
That's a sideline. We all come to that another time.

(13:19):
But most employment, my point is, comes from small business.
Most employment comes from small business in this country. So
if the economy is twenty plus trillion dollars a year.
Is it come from rich people? No, Seventy percent of
the US economy is consumer spending. That's right, seventy percent

(13:40):
of the US economy is consumer spending, and seventy percent
of all Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck. Everybody,
whether you're white, black, red, brown, or yellow, you want
to have some more green? Can I get an amen? Now?
For those listening to this thinking that I'm talking about
so called poor people, it's time for you to wake up.

(14:03):
Half of those who make one hundred thousand dollars a
year are living from paycheck to paycheck. Am I hitting home? Yet?
You should be nodding your head. If your household has
a combined income of one hundred thousand dollars and you
feel that you're failing, you're not. So What about the
very wealthy? What about those who've got great incomes? And

(14:24):
by the way, there's difference between getting rich and building wealth.
You make money during the day, you build wealth in
your sleep. It's called compounding. Stocks, bonds, home ownership, businesses, investments,
education I think qualifies. But things that compound while you're
sleeping your income. You can have a contract. This is
why you can have a contract for one hundred million

(14:45):
dollars in the NBA or whatever and go broke because
you're rich, but you may not be wealthy. So when
your outflow exceed your inflow, then your overhead will be
your downfall. Am I going too fast? Third of those
who make two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year
are living from paycheck to paycheck. That's right. Even the

(15:09):
wealthy are getting hit over the head. A third of
those who make two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a
year are living from paycheck to paycheck. Now, somebody's sitting
here saying I don't care about them. I don't like
the rich. Yeah, everybody hates rich people until they become rich.
People say I hate rich people. No, you don't. You
hate rich people until you become rich. You hate a game?

(15:30):
System is what you hate. You hate a system that
you believe is rigged against you so that you cannot succeed.
You cannot compete, you cannot make any money or build
any wealth because somebody's locked you out. As soon as
you know that you and others you care about can succeed,
you want all in on that because you want prosperity

(15:50):
in the way that you define it. Maybe you want
to make the money and give it away, but you
still want to be able to make the money. Can
I get a name? Man? Even if you want to
distribute money like a so you got to first collect
it like a capitalist. Drop the mic. If you're living
in New York City and you're making one hundred thousand
dollars a year, it feels like thirty nine thousand dollars

(16:13):
a year because the cost of living in New York
City is higher. That's why a lot of folks move
to the Southern States, because the cost of living is
much lower. Even though you may be making less than
you make in New York City or in Los Angeles,
if you move into a southern state, your cost of
living is lower, your housing, transportation, all that stuff is lower,

(16:35):
and your income may not be the same as it
was where you moved from, but it's high enough so
that your standard of living is better. Did you follow
me on that? If you're spending two dollars in New
York and spending two point one dollars more than you make,
but you moved to Atlanta and or you moved to
wherever Nashville, and you're spending one dollar, but you made

(17:00):
one point three dollars. Hello, you're better off even though
you made less. Let me break some eggs around here. Now.
I just talked about the larger economy. I'm going to
talk now about why, why this is everybody's issue, whether

(17:21):
you're black, white, bread, brown, you want some more green.
About sixty four percent, this number vacillates between fifty seven
and sixty four percent of all Americans don't have four
hundred dollars for an unplanned event. Not poor people, everybody. Hello.

(17:42):
So when we work with Delta Airlines at operation, hope
to design a program to give financial coaching and counseling
to every one of their employees and anybody that will
raise a credit score fifty four points in six months,
lower their debt thirty eight hundred dollars in the first year,
increase their savings for twenty two hundred dollars on average.

(18:04):
For somebody making sixty thousand dollars a year, fifty dollars
a year, sixty thousand dollars a year that radically changes
their life and they get a reward of a thousand
dollars emergency savings account for doing that, it goes in
their account at Delta and everybody wins. Well, that's program
has become radically successful, amazingly successful. In the first year.

(18:28):
Half of the employees are taken to the program and
are actively in it, and it's changed their their their mindset,
their mentality, their motivation, has made them less stressed. I've
had brothers walking to me at the in the plane
and just you know, almost with tears in their eyes,
saying that they're not arguing with their wives, wife anymore,

(18:48):
not wives, hello, their wife anymore? You know. Number one
calls a divorce in America. Money. Number one calls for
heart attack. Stress. Number one costs for stress. Money, nemverer
what it calls for domestic abuse? Money? Right? What's a
long protracted divorce about money? I did a whole podcast

(19:11):
just on that. Go and watch that and listen to
that episode. Why is a woman dealing with an abusive man? Money?
I can go on and on and on. We don't
want to talk about it, we want to deal with it.
But it's all around us. So money has a relationship
with you, which you don't have a very good relationship

(19:33):
with money. And so it's taking advantage of you, and
you should be managing it. It should not be managing you.
But you have to understand how this system actually works
so that you can work it. So half of black
people in America, African Americans have a credit score below
six point twenty. Let that sink in for a moment.

(19:57):
We have the Hope Financial Wellness Index that operation Hope Hope.
You can go to the index on the internet, type
in your zip code and we'll tell you what your
credit score is. You tell me your zip code, I'll
tell you how you're living. You lived at sixty one
years old in a five eighty credit score neighborhood. You
lived at eighty one years old in a seven hundred
credit score neighborhood. Twenty year delta, twenty year difference fifteen

(20:18):
minutes apart. All across America. It doesn't matter whether you're
black and brown, urban or white rural. It's the same
rules that apply if you live in a five eighty
credit score neighborhood. You have a check casher next to
a payday loan lender, next to a rent to own store,
next to a title lender, next to a liquor store,
next to a pawn shop and a church down the

(20:39):
street trying to make you feel a little bit better
once a week. That's your neighborhood therapist. And meanwhile, and
in single parent of households and a lot of obesity
and high crime rates and low hol ownership rates, easiest
way to build wealth's home ownership. By the way, biggest
business in the world is real estate. In the world,
high school graduation rates in a five eighty score, neighborhood

(21:01):
crimes off the chart, off the chain, violent crimes, off
the chain, obasis everywhere because too many fast food restaurants
where I don't have anything problem with fast food. I
love my share of mcdonald' or whatever, but you should
need it every day three times a day. Need fruits
and vegetables and healthy food. And you got to go
to a fast food restaurant order a salad every now

(21:22):
and then. So because we're eating bad cheaply, we inflate,
we inflame. Your body is inflamed. You know, most people
aren't fat, they're inflamed. A lot of these things proliferate
in communities. We have low levels of relative education and
financial literacy and high levels of depression. So literally, when

(21:42):
I say if you want to change America race credit
score is one hundred points neighborhood by neighborhood. I know
it sounds crazy, but it's not about the credit scores,
about the trending indicators of wealth of hope, well being, faith, confidence, belief, trust,
all the things that parallel a rising credit score. Then
you get higher access to capital, lower cost of capital

(22:03):
in higher credit score neighborhoods. Seven hundred credit scorred neighborhoods
don't riot. You never seen a riot in a seven
hundre credit card neighborhood in America's history. They don't riot.
They go shopping. So now let me break some real
eggs here. And it sounds like I'm picking on my
black and brown brothers and sisters, but I really want

(22:24):
us to get out of this these bad habits. So
I just talked to you about the largest economy in
the world, the US economy. There's three hundred and fifty
million people in America. Is amazing that the US is
this bohemoth, This amazing economy on the planet is US,
and we are just killing it with a very small population.

(22:45):
It's just a great story of what freedom can do
with all our problems and we have plenty of them.
We still are beacon and a light on the hill.
I talked about thirty million businesses. About within that, you
know about three million black businesses. Three point one million
black busines is within that group, but ninety cent of
them don't have an employee. Hello, I'll do a separate
podcast just on that. Operation Hope, through our partnership with Shopifies,

(23:08):
Creating and others are creating one million black business initiatives
creating black businesses. We've helped, nurtured support it created over
four hundred thousand, as twelve percent of all black businesses
in America. So I'm proud of that. But most of
the companies don't have employees or self employment projects. And
I've already mentioned that the credit score AVERAG credit score
for African Americans is six to twenty, which means half

(23:30):
of us wake up in the morning locked out of
the free enterprise system. You can't get a decent car
loan at six twenty. If you get a Mercedes, it's
not a Mercedes's mercy these payments. You can't get a
decent mortgage at six twenty. It needs to be about
seven hundred. You definitely can't get a small business loan
below seven hundred credit score because it's considered risky credit.
You can't get unsecured credit lines of credit in the

(23:53):
low six hundreds. You need a proper credit score if
you have a seven hundred to an eight hundred credit score.
Or the computer on balance that you're applying for just
says yes, it is killer. What color you are, where
you live. It's like, yes, I want you to be
my client. It just the computer just says yes, no,
the color's green. Hello. So go to operation and get

(24:15):
a whole financial coach. It's free sixteen trillion dollars. The
whole economy is only twenty three trillion. Racism against blacks
alone corridor, a City Group report, costs the US economy
sixteen trillion dollars. And if we just knocking off, we
stop it, the US economy would surge a trillion dollars
a year. That's a big bump. So here's an egg

(24:38):
I'm going to break now going the other direction of
how we shoot ourselves in the foot. In the black community,
you have this twenty three trillion dollar economy, this rocket ship.
African Americans call it. Forty million black people, give or
take trying to be three thousand rappers and three thousand
football and basketball players. And I mean, it's just the

(25:00):
numbers don't work. Yes, we're brilliant, we're talented, but I
can't scale an entertainment icon. I can't scale a sports icon.
I can't scale Lebron, I can't scale Magic Johnson. I
can't scale Ti and Killer Mike and all these people,
Chris Tucker. I can't scale these are iconic Oprah, these
are individuals, and maybe they employee twenty thirty forty people.

(25:22):
Maybe how do you get forty million people into the economy.
Here's what we've done. We've micro focused on things like
entertainment and sports. All good, I'm not telling you not
to do it, but here are the numbers. I like
to quote melody hops and I like math because it
doesn't have an opinion. Here's the math of the matter.

(25:45):
And here's why I keep telling you. I want you
to have a backup plan to your dreams, and I
need your backup plan to be your primary plan. Okay,
twenty three trillion, I've said this enough to drive it
into your brain. Twenty three trillion dollars US economy. What
part of that you think is music not black music, country, blues,

(26:06):
rock and roll, R and B. You know, all genres
of music, all of them, everything, everything rolled up together
of a twenty three trillion dollar economy. I want you
to tell me he would talk about this all day,
all night. Everybody I know, not everybody. All the young
people I know, lots of them wants to be rappers, singers,
whatever they want to be in. They want to be
rocking the mic. They want to they want to you know,

(26:27):
they want to be a star. Okay, you're a smart person.
What part of that which you guess is the US
part of the US economy twenty three trillion dollars. I'll wait,
think about it now. There's no there's no shame, there's
no embarrassment here, right you ready about sixteen billion dollars.
Sixteen billion dollars is zero point zero seven percent, So

(26:52):
one percent would be one point zero zero, just to
give you a hits, right, ten percent would be one
zero dot zero zero. The music business, all genres, all music, white, black,
let they know, Asian, everything, zero point zero seven percent.
And then they say, well, the impact of the music
business has this knock on effect of ten x ten

(27:15):
times because of all the industries that feed off the
music business. So it's one hundred and sixty billion. Okay,
that number is not large. So that's the music business.
The entertainment business is also about one hundred and sixty
billion dollars. Right. Another business that is is at that
same range is professional sports. Now this is not just football, basketball, baseball, soccer.

(27:40):
The ones you watch all levels of professional sports together
combined is you know, one hundred and sixty billion dollars
a year. That's zero point seven zero percent. Again one
percent would be one point zero zero. This is less
than the So you have everybody, I know, all young

(28:04):
people try to push all their dreams into something that's
a micro bicro micro fraction of the annual US economy.
So where is all the money? And by the way,
and even in those areas, who's getting the money? It's lawyers,
you know, accountants, business managers. Oh okay, I'm glad. Uh

(28:26):
we said that rental companies. I'm gonna get the if
if you're gonna be in the entertainment business, rent lenses, yes,
I said, lenses like the when you go to a
video shoot. They don't buy all that equipment they rented
there are cameras that are worth two hundred thousand dollars,
seventy thousand dollars, fifty thousand dollars, there are lenses worth

(28:48):
seventy thousand dollars. Anyway, these are very precise, uh you know,
all the way down to five ten thousand dollars. Just
rent those things because those companies buy rent those on
a regular basis. All these companies doing shoots of videos
and movies and whatever and TV shows. They most of
those companies, and they shore a big studio. They rent
that equipment, they rent that gear. I want to be
in the rental business. I want to rent the mic,

(29:10):
rent the video cameras that I own to these companies.
That's a business of being right, rent the think about
everything on a movie set. Yeah, be in that business.
Being a support the catering businesses, the trailer ownership in
rental businesses, the trailer truck pulling business. I mean, think
about it now, the engineers, all the business that support

(29:34):
the entertainment and sports sectors. I don't want to rock
a mic on the stage. I want to own the
dang on stage. Can I get a named man? So
let's look at a group that actually has done this
in reverse. So you have forty million people trying to
get in. These three thousand jobs are going to turn
over it three to five years. By by the way,

(29:54):
seventy percent of all those in NFL bankrupt five years
after retirement. Seventy percent give or take, of those in
the NBA, the numbers are about the same. Bankrupt are
running the financial difficulties five years after retirement. Don't trust me,
look up the numbers yourself. And I'm not hating on
these roads. I love that we are we have these jobs.
But once you are a professional athlete, are a rapper,

(30:15):
and that that runs out, and you don't have a
degree in the things that drive to you as economy,
what do you do for the rest of your life.
You're an athlete from twenty twenty to age twenty three,
we hope you live to one hundred at least to
seventy or eighty. What do you do for the other
the other forty to fifty years? Be a postman if
you want to work at Starbucks. If you want to,

(30:36):
I mean, what do you qualify for? You need a
degree in something that has you know, technical skills tied
to it. That's not easy to replace that gives you
a middle class or a middle class lifestyle when the
party is over, of the exciting thing that you want
to grab a hold of in the here and now.
Because anyway, enough on that, I've been obsessing about that.

(30:59):
Let me back up for a minute and give a
wider lens. So if you have forty million people black
people trying to do these micro jobs that don't last
very long, then what's a group that has the opposite
of that. Well, you have my Jewish brothers and sisters,
seven and a half million of them in America who
are in these broad based professions and industries. Entertainment, yes,

(31:23):
but they're typically the back room of the entertainment, finance, banking,
real estate, medical, creative spaces. So let me tell you
what's driving the economy, right, And my Asian brothers and sisters,
Indians trying to be a lot of them are engineers
in the technical spaces. Okay, So in the vast portion
of mainstream whites who are middle class or more in

(31:45):
the category I'm about to tell you about. So the
big buckets of American economy healthcare ten percent of the
US economy or more. If you want to talk about
health care, wellness, medical broadly based. Then that's probably a
third of the US economy. Finance and banking, real estate

(32:06):
I just gave you. And if you say the professionals
services area like accountants and lawyers and bankers and financiers
and engineers and business managers, hello, all those professional expertise groups,
computer technicians, etc. That's the vast majority of the economy.
Real estate, banking, finance, and healthcare and professional services represent

(32:29):
seventy percent seven d percent of the entire economy. And
people say, oh, man, that's boring. Is broke boring, because
that's what you'll be if you don't understand what you see.
And then you have other groups that are larger than
entertainment in sports, but are smaller than professional services banking,

(32:50):
real estate, finance, and healthcare. And they include goods producing
industries like agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and construction, amongst others. So
we're demystifying the economy here, we're unpacking this. I'm telling
you how the economy works and who and what is

(33:11):
driving the economy. I'm telling you how you can participate
in it and where you should look. By the way,
the biggest industry in the world real estate. So if
you want to build generational wealth, there are two industries
sectors that have never gone down in the history of America.

(33:33):
Real estate in the stock market. Now, somebody's gonna say, John,
I got you Now. Stock market crashed in nineteen twenty nine,
and market crashed again this time and that time, and
the market was down even after the pandemic. John, real
estate crashed in two thousand and eight. What rock were
you under? And what do you know? This is now?
We got you, John, This is wrong. Hey, real estate

(33:56):
goes up, there's a market correction, recession, even dips, stabilizes,
corrects above the line. Get that market. Real estate goes up,
and the stock market goes up. Market correction, recession maybe
to recede. That's what a recession means for an economy
to received to go backwards. Market goes up, recedes, recession,

(34:20):
balances out, catches itself, catches its breath, and then corrects
above the line on its rebound. And when it corrects
above that line, that's when people go from doing well
to doing incredibly well. That's where wealth comes from. You
build wealth in your sleep. You have to own equities.
You've got to own stocks, bonds, business ownership, real estate.

(34:41):
You got to own something that is tangible, and real
income is during the day. You build wealth in your sleep.
You make your money during the day. You make your
money work for you at night. Okay, I think I've
done a good job of summarizing the overall economy. You'll
tell me if I didn't. Here are the largest economies

(35:04):
in the world. I'm gonna run through them. So America
is the sole superpower in the world. There's never been
a superpower in the world that wasn't at the same
time the leading economic power in the world. So, Spain
was a superpower. France was a superpower. Germany was a superpower. Hello,

(35:27):
Argentina was a superpower. Latin America giving it its props.
I'm doing this by memory. And at the same time
they were the political superpower, the UK Britain was a superpower.
People were started trying to correct me. Now you missed
this one, John, I'm doing this for memory. How about you.
How's your memory? All this whole podcast is basically my memory.

(35:48):
I'm just telling you what tell you what I know.
But when their economy tripped up, they tripped up. Okay,
and America is now the sole superpower in the world.
We're also the leading economy in the world, and so
we got to keep this party going. And the only
way you do that is with all of us. Are
put another way, my poor friends do better if only
to stay rich. Even a racist needs a black man

(36:12):
to succeed so that he prospers or she prospers. Because
when the economy grows, all boats rise. When GDP gross
domestic product increases. Here are the largs economies in the
world ready, and I already mentioned this was number one. Hello,
the United States, two, China three, Germany for Japan, they

(36:33):
keep changing places. By the way, Germany and Japan they're
in the four trillion dollar club above that is big
jumps China at seventeen trillion, America at twenty three to
twenty six trillion, depending on which numbers you look at,
India three point seven trillion, United Kingdom Britain three point
three trillion, France three trillion, Italy two point one trillion,

(36:55):
Brazil two point one trillion. America's in Latin America. I
think I've hit every continent here in the top ten.
Canada two point one tree, in Russia one point eight tree.
Remember I told you Russia was a rounding era America's
twenty plus trade in Russia's one point eight trade and hello,
they just make a lot of noise through threats and

(37:15):
terrorism and barbarism. There are four troublemakers in the world.
Leading troublemakers Russia with all due respect, China, Iran and
North Korea. And I'll give China's props if it's just.
If China would just simply give us people freedom and
stop cheating a capitalism, I might like and start saying

(37:38):
nice things about them to stop trying to undermine America.
But through disinformation and cheating at the game of success.
We don't mind a fair fight, but you can't win.
I'm convinced that what can beat America in a fair
fight you got to cheat. So they're trying to undermine
America because we are only better together. Another podcast for
another time. But God blessed the success of the Chinese people,

(37:59):
who I want to be successful. The twelfth largest economy
in the world. You'll be surprised to hear this. Mexico
right behind Russia one point eight trillion, South Korea one
point seven trillion, Australia one point six trillion, Spain one
point five trillion, Indonesia one point four trillion, Turkey one
point one trillion, Saudi Arabia one point one trillion. Thought

(38:22):
that were larger, didn't You thought Saudi Arabia was larger
than that. I was in Saudi Arabia when it was
eight hundred billion. They've jumped a few steps to the
Netherlands one trillion. Now we're jumping into the billions now.
Switzerland nine hundred billion, Poland this position twenty one eight
hundred and forty billion, Taiwan seven hundred and fifty billion,

(38:43):
Belgium six hundred and twenty seven billion, Argentina this was
the largest economy in the world at one point six
hundred and twenty billion. They've got all kind of problems
now they're working through them. Sweden five hundred and ninety billion,
Ireland five eighty nine billion, Norway love that place. My
friend Crown Prince Hocken helps to run that place. The

(39:03):
future King five hundred and fifty billion, Austria five hundred
and twenty six billion, Israel five hundred and twenty one billion,
Thailand five hundred and twelve billion. And by the way,
that Israel, there's only like fifteen million Jews in the world.
It's amazing what they've done. Seven and a half million
Jews outside the US and and a half millions Jews here.

(39:24):
Don't hate on their success. Follow their business plan for
creating business and economic growth. I have go so far
as to say, I think black folks need a Black
Jewish business plan with regard to getting you know, how
do you come up when you're an oppressed people? I
think it's a good template. By the way, half of
the whites who supported Doctor King and the civil rights
movement were Jewish. Hello, in the ego it goes from there.

(39:46):
You know, number thirty Thailand five hundred billion. Now when
you get down into the mid four hundred billions, Vietnam
forty and thirty three billion, Philippines forty to thirty five billion.
Guess what country is at that same level? John, did
you just mention these are countries? Yes? I did, good catch.
It's a city. It's Atlanta, the metro area of Atlanta.

(40:09):
The seven counties represent four hundred plus billion dollars in
annual revenue. The moral capital of America and a place
where we've proven the diversity works for everybody. Inclusive capitalism
for everybody. The tenth largest economy in the US, if
it was a nation, will be the largest economy in
the world. And out in with what is the GDP

(40:30):
for black people? What is African American GDP? You know
what is our economic spending power for last year? The
one point six trillion dollars was the GDP. If we
were a nation of one point six trillion dollars, so
we'd be almost larger than Russia. Unfortunately, the black dollar

(40:52):
doesn't circulate in the black community. Unfortunately, ninety percent plus
of what we make we spend on consumption. Unfortunately, we
only owned only forty five percent of us own a home,
and the easiest way to build wealth is home ownership. Unfortunately,
ninety six percent of us our black businesses don't have
an employees I mentioned earlier. So you see, we're not

(41:13):
dumb and we're not stupid. We're brilliant. When the rules
of published and the playing fielders level, we kill it.
Professional sports, athletes, entertainment, public office. With the rules of
published and the playing fielders level, we absolutely succeed. But
because the Freedman's Bank was created after the Civil War
by Abraham Lincoln and ran by Frederick Douglass, a free

(41:34):
slave who became a brilliant businessman who owned six million
dollars with the real estate in Baltimore, Maryland during the
Civil War period and rented it out to working class blacks.
By the way, the same business that I'm in with
one of my companies, the Promised Homes Company, affordable single
family rental homes. I sold the company by still am

(41:54):
a shareholder in it. That's the business of Frederick Dulles
was in. And that bank, the Freeman's Bank chartered marched
the eighteen sixty five to quote teach free slaves about money.
That bank failed after Lincoln was assassinated a month after
he signed it in the law. And blacks would never
talk about the free enterprise system. We're not dumb and
we're not stupid. Is what we don't know. That we

(42:15):
don't know, but we think we know because no one
ever gave us the memo. That's my fourth book I
think on how the free enterprise system and capitalism works.
That's why I say that financial literacy is a civil
rights issue of this generation. And we've got to move
from protesting in the streets to cutting business deals in
the business suites. The new color is not a white, black, red, brown,

(42:36):
or yellow. It's green. Hello, all right, I've talked enough
for one day. This is the Ministry of Hope, the
Ministry of Finance. This is the Silver or Rights Movement.
This is the third Reconstruction. This is how we all
come up. This is my weekly pulpit for all of us.
This is me trying to unpack how things work. This

(42:59):
is me and hacking the overall economy. If I miss something,
you want me to focus on and just tell me
what it is and I will break it down for you.
By the way, I got one number wrong. The entertainment
industry is about one trillion dollars a year in annual GDP.
About four point four percent of all GDP professional sports

(43:20):
was I got this right, point zero or zero point
seven zero percent. That was one hundred and sixty billion.
And music, all genres of music was zero point zero
seven percent. That's about sixteen billion with a knock on effect.
If you will, of all the if you want to
say of how it's healthy for all the other businesses

(43:42):
that support music, really liberal about it. You can say
it's one hundred billion plus, but it's still a small number,
but entertainment which is really tourism, and there's a lot
of hospitalities, a lot of things in that number, not
just rocking the mic. Entertainment in quotation marks is the
largest of the industries we actually obsess on for but

(44:04):
it's still four percent of GDP for the nation. So
be an engineer. You'll never go broke. Get in real
estate unless your brain dead or not paid attention. You
can't help, but do well. It'll go up by itself
over time. Buy it, rehabit, rent it, or live in it,
don't sell it, and things should work out for you.
So on a little bit of bonds and stocks, and

(44:24):
have an insurance policy for you and your family. You know,
I mean there's some basic stuff if you have an
insurance policy. By the way, as get insurance policy twenty
thirty forty years of age. When you get you know,
when you get married or stay out in life, you
know when you pass. Get it for a million dollars.
You can get one pretty easily at a young age.
Won't cost you much. And when you kick and we

(44:45):
don't know how long we're going to live, we all
know we're going to die. When you kick and have
a will that becomes something you can pass the proceeds,
pass on to your heirs, your children, your spouse and
give them some generational wealth on the way out the door.
I hope this is helpful. This is just O'Bryant money
and wealth. Let's go change the world. Hey aa, this

(45:15):
is money and Wealth with John O'Briant on the Black
Effect Podcast Network. At iHeart this is a fan question.
This is from A H. S A N M I
T C H E L L underscore at Instagram A

(45:37):
son Michael. I believe I'm saying that properly from Instagram.
What is an intellectual properties financial relevancy in creating wealth?
A great question. I would go one step further and
say it was an intellectual property rights financial relevancy in
creating wealth? Or just what's his an intellectual property rights value? Well,

(46:04):
if you want to find the value of a Stevie Wonder,
then look at his intellectual property rights, his music, his brand,
his image, his likeness. What is the value of doctor
King today his intellectual property rights, his his speeches, his recordings,
his image. What's an intellectual property rights of my brother Charlemagne,

(46:26):
the founder of the Black Effect Network? Same his radio program,
the Breakfast Club, and all the other stuff that he does.
What's an intellectual property right of Michael Jackson or whoever
your favorite artist is. But also, intellectual property rights are
not just creative. You have an intellectual property that's well,
a brand, it's intangibly tangible. Coca Cola is an intellectual property,

(46:51):
the brand of Coca Cola. They've created value in the name.
I think I've created an intellectual property value in the
things that I've been associated with. I'm gonna make this
really simple. Uh, if you want to find a growing economy,
economy is really really doing well, you'll find a lot
of patents. All a patent is is a monetized idea.

(47:13):
A monetized idea is an intellectual property. It's it's a thought,
it's an idea, it's a creative that's been structured and
been then codified in protections. In this particular case, a patent.
You also have copyrights. You can have all kinds of
ways of protecting n f T s or you can
you can you know, you can have digital kind of

(47:34):
digital and other ways of protecting intellectual properties. Uh. But
the easiest way to describe understand this is the biggest
economies in the world have the most patents, and the smallest,
most destitute places in the world have almost no patents
because they're they're war torn and people are not don't
have the in order to be creative and to have

(47:54):
the kind of environment where you create things and you
then monetize things, well, you need a legal structure, you
need a government, you need fair play, you need laws,
you need the rule of law, and you need peace
of mind. Well that doesn't work very well in places
of a warrant tory, and that does it. So I
hope I explained in a thumbnail what an intellectual property

(48:15):
is and how it creates and can create financial relevancy
and is a form of wealth creation. At some point,
A mutual fund, before it was a mutual fund, was
an intellectual property. A car before it was a car
was an intellectual property. A collection of those which are
patents in other rights that came together to manufacture that car.

(48:40):
The axle, the wheel, the tire, all those were inventors
that created those things and put them together ultimately through
a manufacturer and a car designer who has intellectual property rights,
who then created this car which ultimately becomes a physical
asset or liability, but a physical thing right, a real
piece of property, real property. They call it something you

(49:03):
can touch, which you know, but it started with an
intellectual property. Most great things started with intellectual property. Music
is as old as the world itself, is amazing, maybe
the original language. Those are intellectual in my opinion, intellectual properties. Okay,
I can go on and on about this, but tired
to hear myself talk, and so are you. So there

(49:24):
we go. Hope this has been helpful and thank you
for the fan question from Asan Michelle at Instagram. John
O'Brien this is money and Wealth. I'm out. Money and

(49:50):
Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of the Black
Effect podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black Effect
Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. The