Ep 08: The Politics of Money - Featuring John Hope Bryant

Jemele spends "The Filibuster" exploring athletes' volatile relationship with financial literacy. Then, Jemele welcomes the foremost expert on financial literacy. John Hope Bryant, the author of "Financial Literacy for All" and CEO, Chairman and Founder of Operation HOPE.  Bryant explains why he believes financial literacy is this generation's civil rights issue. John and Jemele also go back and forth whether Michael Jordan should have sold his controlling interest in the Charlotte Hornets. John also gives his thoughts on why athletes disproportionately file for bankruptcy, why more Americans have invested in sports gambling than the stock market, and if athletes should begin converting their salary to Bitcoin. Lastly, Jemele addresses a question from a listener who wants to know why she supported Vice President Kamala Harris despite her being “unqualified" to be the next US President.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, what's up everybody.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Jameel Hill and welcome to politics and iHeart podcast
and Unbothered Network production.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Time to get spolitical.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Do you all remember when Left Eye from TLC broke down,
how their group sold ten million albums but they were
still broke.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
This is how a.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Group can sell ten million records and be broke, and everyone.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
You're ready to do your math. When we first started out,
we were kind of cocky.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Okay, there are one hundred points on an album.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
TLC had seven. Every point is equal to.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Eight cents, all right, seven times eight fifty six cents.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
But as time went on we learned a lot.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
That means every time an album gets sold, TLC gets
fifty sixers.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
So ten million records five.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Point six million dollars seems like a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Well, it's not a lot of money.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
When the record come we have spent three million dollars
through record your out and in the record business we
pay all costs back to the record company. We pay
recording costs, video costs. So now we have two point
six million dollars left. Well, guess what when you have
that much money, you're in about the forty seven forty
eight forty nine percent tax bracket, so that immediately gets

(01:23):
dusted to one point three million dollars. Then you split
the rest three ways, you got about three.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 4 (01:30):
Is that much?

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Okay, three hundred thousand dollars. I can buy a nice
house with that, and what am I gonna pay my
bills with?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Now, there are a lot of professional athletes who can
relate to that story, because, according to Sports Illustrated, seventy
eight percent of NFL players face financial trouble within two
years of leaving the game.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
For NBA players it's sixty percent.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
For Major League Baseball players, it's about five years before
they start experiencing financial hardship, and even more alarming, seventy
percent and a foreign born Latino players experience financial hardship
within their first four years of retirement. Now to understand
how this happens, we need to first understand how professional
athletes get paid. I'll use the NFL as my example.
An NFL contract consists of a player's base salary, which

(02:15):
can be guaranteed or non guaranteed, depending on contract structure.
In general, the most important number to look at is
the guaranteed money. Patrick Mahomes signed a ten year extension
with the Kansas City Chiefs that goes through the twenty
thirty one season. His contract is worth four hundred and
fifty million, but with incentives, Mahomes could be looking at
collecting five hundred and three million dollars. However, Mahomes only

(02:38):
has one hundred and forty one million coming in guaranteed money.
Mahomes's contract, like a lot of NFL contracts, is filled
with injury guarantees, cap guarantees, and skill guarantees. He has
million dollar incentives for winning MVPs, the Super Bowl and
for taking at least fifty percent of the snaps in
a given season. Another important figure in an NFL contract
are the signing bonuses. Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love

(03:00):
have recorded the highest sighting bonus in history, a cool
seventy five million dollars. Now here's something else important to
know about an NFL contract. NFL players often don't get
paid year round, something a lot of them didn't know
when they got into the league, including former NFL player
Josh Cribs.

Speaker 5 (03:16):
Did you know that we got paid every week?

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Every Tuesday?

Speaker 5 (03:22):
I thought that you got we got paid every Tuesday
for the year. I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
All your check was so be Yeah, in the off
season we didn't get paid.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
I didn't know, okay, and I was I was in fear.
Something else.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
NFL players have to pay, and this applies to other
professional athletes as well. It's something called the jock tax.
Athletes are required to pay taxes in every city they
play in. That one hundred and sixty two games schedule
and baseball look a lot different now, doesn't it.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Well, accept if you're want Soto.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Now, when you start combing through the stories of how
professional athletes lose money, a few familiar things and patterns
start to emerge. So here are the five biggest reasons
professional athletes wind up in financial hardship. Number five, everybody
is on the payroll, and by everybody, I mean family
and friends. A lot of athletes feel pressure to put

(04:16):
everybody on. Here's Darren Woodson explaining that I want you.

Speaker 6 (04:21):
To paint this picture of four my mom four kids,
worked two jobs.

Speaker 5 (04:24):
I had no understanding of finances.

Speaker 6 (04:26):
I had no history of financial literacy, financial literacy and nothing.
So most players, they got so many people around them,
family members, dads, dads, cousins, so.

Speaker 5 (04:38):
You got all these people who are just pulling Hey.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Send me, you know, give me that five thousand.

Speaker 5 (04:43):
For this, and I need to start this business.

Speaker 6 (04:46):
And you have to become selfish in a lot of
ways because it don't last forever.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
The second reason athletes go broke children.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
According to the US Department of Agriculture, it costs a
little over two hundred and thirty three thousand a year
to raise a child to eighteen in the United s States.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
That's a damn g wagon. One or two kids is
already a lot.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
So imagine being Tyreek Hill, who reportedly has ten children,
or Scottie Pippen, who has seven kids, or Evander Holyfield
who has eleven children. That's one too carried to one.
Multiply by three. I'm gonna let y'all do that math
at home. Third reason athletes struggle financially once they leave
the game is divorced. Half a first marriage's end in divorce.

(05:25):
In two thousand and eight, former pro golfer Greg Norman
had to pay one hundred and three million dollars in
his divorce settlement. Ex Wifey also walked away with their
seventeen and a half million dollar beach front home, another
four million dollar house and half a million in jewelry.
The fourth reason athletes experience financial hardship their egos get
involved and the next thing you know, they've blown twenty

(05:47):
million dollars.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Listen to this from Shaquille O'Neil.

Speaker 7 (05:50):
The first words you need to understand is faika. And
you know if you're dealing one hundred million dollar contract
depends on what state you're living. You ain't getting one
hundred million, but you spend like you got a hundred million,
and that'd be the problem.

Speaker 5 (06:01):
My first year check was twenty million.

Speaker 7 (06:03):
When I got it and said ten to nine fighter
states all the tax right, But I didn't realize that,
so I went and bought a house for five million.
I'm in the Rolls Royce joint, so I'm like, hey man,
how much is this now?

Speaker 5 (06:14):
How much is this one?

Speaker 7 (06:15):
So finally the old guy says, yo, man, you asked
them about all these cars, can you afford them? Now?
I'm pissed, So I buy three. So they got another
mallion that's six, try and be a rapper, trying to
produce my own video. They go another man that's seven.
So I spent that ten million, probably in three months
the whole summer, and then my guy called me and say,
you know, you spend your whole check.

Speaker 5 (06:33):
Took a lot of money.

Speaker 7 (06:33):
I was paying attention, but I was like, okay, now
I need to really and then I was getting married
at the times like now I really need to start paying.
It ain't about me no more.

Speaker 5 (06:40):
It's about these.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Baby, so fighter, if I see you out in these streets,
it's on site.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
And the final reason pro athletes go broke once they
stop playing. They forget that.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Most of the time, they don't get to retire on
their own. The game retires them. They make the mistake
of assuming the money is just going to keep coming.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Their way forever.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Here's former NBA player at Lou Young, who played eighteen
years in the NBA.

Speaker 8 (07:04):
A lot of people think it's like you just got
a reckless spending habit. It ain't that we got reckless
spending happens. We just got crazy overhead and wants to
check stop. It gets completely different. It's nobody's sitting there
giving you real numbers because it's coming in so fast.
Money coming in so fast, that's just the contract. Like
you might have a shoe deal, you might have some endorsements,
so you feel like this shit is gonna be forever.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
It was culture shot to me the first week.

Speaker 8 (07:28):
I didn't get a big check from being retired, where
it was like, oh, figure this out.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, like life has begun, and most times real life
begins quicker than they think. The average NFL career lasts
three point three years, the average NHL career last three
point five for the NBA is four point eight, and
Major League Baseball is five point six.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
That's not a long time. Now.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
It feels like athletes these days are making smarter decisions
when it comes to money. Lebron James isn't done playing
and he's already worth a billion dollars his salary and
his investments, which include Blaze Pizza and owning a minority
stake of Liverpool FC. Steph Curry is invested in esports, whiskey,
and he has his own production company. Players seem to
be getting wiser, but they have to remember the golden rule.

(08:15):
It is still tricking even if you got it. I'm
Jamel Hill and I approved this message. Coming up next
on Spolitics, I'll be continuing this conversation about the politics
of money with one of the foremost money authorities in
this country. He's the founder, chairman, and CEO of Operation Hope.
His best selling book, Financial Literacy for All, is a

(08:36):
must read. He has generated billions for underserved communities and
has worked with multiple presidents. Nobody understands money the way
that he does. Coming up next on his politics, John Hope,
Brian John is such a pleasure for you to join

(08:57):
me here on his politics, And I'm going to start
the cast by asking you a question that I ask
every guest who appears on politics, which is name an
athlete or a sports moment that made you love sports.

Speaker 5 (09:12):
When I saw Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and other people
of color who are athletes figure out the only way
they're going to become a billionaire is to go from
bouncing the ball to owning the stadium, from from hitting

(09:32):
the ball, bouncing the ball, rocking the mic, whatever it is,
to owning something that produces something where you write checks,
not just cash them. The only way you become a
billionaire in sports is to switch to business. If you're
if you're an athlete, you can't cash enough checks. And
so when I saw that move, so I know this

(09:53):
is not the answer. You thought you'd give for me
when I thought, when I saw those moves, I realized
why they were so good on the court, because you
can be he really really talented the court, but at
some point you got to use your brain. A lot
of this I've been told by the best athletes, a
lot of their gifts are not just as they're gifted athletically.
They're strategists. They're thinking about they're strategizing, and they're looking

(10:14):
at the moves of their of the people that have
defended them the best, and they're figuring that out in advance.
So they figured they're going to go right, so they're
going to go left or whatever they're going to do.
And that applies to that high frequency thinking. My wife
calls it a high frequency thinking. Shan true that high
frequency thinking applies to all other parts of life and business.

(10:34):
So uh, that's my answer, my my my most my
favorite athletes are those that are bilingual and who and
I mean Hank Aaron lived right around the corner from me,
uh here in Atlanta, got rest of soul and he
made some money in sports, not much back in those days,
but he was but he made a mint, I mean
a mint in business. Uh. He owned car dealerships, you know.

(10:57):
I mean, it's just he just killed the game. So
all those folks who understand that it's the sports business
are my heroes. And she ros in sports. And by
the way, you are amazing. And I'm here because of you.
I'm here because I respect and admire you. We don't
know each other well, but we will. But I read

(11:20):
people very well, and even before I met you, I
read your spirit and your energy, and I said, she's
about something. She's good people, she's balanced. You know, you
don't take yourself seriously. You take life seriously, and you're
about the business. And you're wicked smart. And I love
people who are wicked smart, and so I just wanted
to pay that respect to you on air.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Well, that means a lot coming from somebody like you,
who is also somebody who is wicked smart. But I'm
so glad you brought up Michael Jordan because that immediately
leads me to this question, what did you think about
his decision to sell the Hornets? Because Michael Jordan was
the only black owner in professional sports who own the
majority of his team. You know they are of course,

(12:01):
there's other black owners who owned pieces and ten percent
and five percent, but he was the only one who
was the majority owner in sports.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
So what did you think about his decision to sell?

Speaker 5 (12:10):
Well, I mean, first of all, you won't know what
was driving that decision until you're inside of Mike's inner circle,
So we don't know really what was driving it. Was
it a tax reason, was it a state planning?

Speaker 7 (12:25):
You know?

Speaker 5 (12:25):
Was he you know, did he have some pressures because
there was an other investment he needed to make. Did
he have a was there a time? Was there time?
Was there a time capsule on? It? Tied to a
range of decisions he had to make. But I would
just say this, businesses are meant to be sold. I mean,
that's my answer. Businesses, that's the whole purpose of it is.

(12:47):
You build it, you grow it, you monetize it by
selling it. I built the biggest As an example, I'm
the largest. I found the largest minority owner of single
family rental homes in America. I owned seven hundred homes
from Atlanta to North Florida. I bought, I built the

(13:08):
company starting twenty sixteen, and in Christmas Eve twenty twenty one,
I sold that company for one hundred and twenty one
million dollars, and I owned thirty five percent of the
new company with the new owners, and people asked me,
how do I feel about it? I feel just fine.
I feel one hundred twenty one million dollars about it.

(13:28):
I feel just fine about it. I cleared all my
debts and I paid off every investor I paid. They
saw clipped. I clipped my coupon on Wall Street. I
did a Wall Street Institutional quality deal. I've done other deals,
but they weren't Wall Street Institutional Quality. I was financed
by Bearings, which is an institutional lender, and then later
a financed by City Group. They gave me non recourse

(13:50):
debt for one hundred million and two hundred million IM sorry,
two hundred million and one hundred million dollars respectively, no
recourse meaning a personal guarantee. My investors got paid act
plus interests. I'll say it was seven percent. I cleared everything,
and I hooked up minority vendors, and I gave you
all opportunities they didn't have before. But my time had
come and it was time for me to sell that company,

(14:13):
monetize it, and go through something else. And so while
I'm still a sharold of that company. Now that's set
me up to do a deal that's that I believe
will be ten times larger in the same space. Black
people sometimes we get emotional about business. It's just business.
Business is a capitalism is a gladiator sport. And so

(14:35):
I do understand what you're saying about. He was the
only majority owner who was black. That's really important. But
by the way, that will never go away. Just I
said I'm the I described. I didn't say I was
a CEO or the chairman of this company. Promise Homes
Company as the name of that company. I built fifty companies,
but I said I'm the founder. Now, Jameel, I'll always

(14:55):
be the founder, forever, forever, in the lifetime, no matter
what happens with that company, unless they do things I
don't want to be associated with, I'll say I'm the
founder of that company. So he's he was a majority
owner probably the first. You'll correct me if I'm wrong,
and that will that history will inspire others and will

(15:16):
be forever more of the case and hopefully left his
DNA there and he'll go on to do other things,
which by the way, he's now involved in NASCAR, which,
as you know, I love motorsports. That's my sport. I
race cars, and the president of NASCAR is on my
board of directors and he's already changing changing Nascar. I

(15:38):
know because I hear the backstories. So you know, look,
no one gets to no one should be counting somebody
else's money, you know, So we just don't know what
decisions he was making. I make decisions sometimes at this
tax bracket, on tax for tax purposes, that that wasn't
my reality eight years ago. I was also about getting

(16:01):
that bag eight years ago, getting that dollar, getting that bag,
getting that cash. It was about also, it was about
I would do something eight years ago that was emotional.
Oh this is going to look good, and my people
were you know, my people are gonna be inspired by this.
So whatever, you know, my black community is good for
the black community, whatever. And now I think all those
things are true, that what I'm doing is still good

(16:22):
for the black community, whatever. But I don't make the
decision for that reason. I make the decision because it's
a good business decision, period, full stop. And my Jewish
brothers and sisters, you know, not seeing them running around
saying I'm about to start a Jewish business or I'm
a Jewish owner. You know, we black pople see a
Black Jewish business plan, they own it, and it's about

(16:42):
the money, it's about the capitol. And then when they
finished with it, they then donate to their Jewish causes
by the way, synagogue, schools, philanthropy in their community. And
white people do the same thing, and people do the
same thing. It's only Black people who get hung up,
in my opinion, on too much emotions in business. I
over answered your question by about one hundred and fifty percent.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
No, But you gave me a lot of meat on
that bone to pick from. So to your point about
the emotion in business, those other groups that you mentioned,
they don't have, if I may give you some gentle pushback,
they do not have the say no, but they don't
have the same legacy in this country that we do.

(17:30):
And by legacy I mean that in both a positive
and a negative way, given what our trajectory has been
in this country. So aren't they in a better position
to do that than we are?

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Can we really service our capitalist needs in lieu of
serving our community? Or are those things not mutually exclusive?

Speaker 5 (17:52):
Oh, this is the best question I've been asked all year.
Uh and I'm not even I mean, I'm not even exaggerating.
You can't if you want, even if you want to
distribute money like a socialist, you have to first collected
like a capitalist. Our problem is that we've never tried
to use capitalism to grow our community and to meet

(18:16):
our social needs. That is is just it's just the opposite,
like every group of people you mentioned, except and I'll
give carve outs here to be very specific. So let's
say there's two hundred plus ethnic groups in America, more
than that, but major ethnic groups. All of them except
three groups use capitalism and a capitalist democracy. We're in
a capitalist democracy all of them. The three use capitalism

(18:40):
to come up from nothing. So I'm going to be
very charitable once and I'll say poor whites and put
us last, Native American, Indians and African Americans, by the way,
not African Africans, jamail, not Nigerians, not ghanaianskilling it. They

(19:00):
killing the game. Not not the not Jamaicans, the Bohemians.
They killing the game here in America. They come here,
own the in three you know, within three years coming here.
The valets at them, sorry, they're dormant at the hotel.
Then the valets. Then they own a taxi company. Then
I mean own a taxi. Then then they have three
taxi They got all their cousins working at the front
of the hotel. This is the park where we met,

(19:22):
the park Hyatt in d C. That is literally the story.
That's why you see all those Ethiopians out front. They
owned Now they own the uber companies. They went and
bought a house together. They understood capitalism and their self
esteem was not destroyed. Black people, we need five things
to be successful. As much education as you can shut
down your throat understanding how capitalism free enterpries works, getting

(19:44):
the memo on money, financial literacy, family structure, and resilience,
self esteem and confidence. Those two things are different. Role
models and environment. We were denied all five things. Native
American Indians were denied all five things. At least four
of those five we were at only people and slaves
in Americans. So you've made I make I'm saying if

(20:05):
you didn't say it been clear. But poor whites were
denied most of those things, which is why poor whites
are different from rich whites. If race was the only issue,
I'm being provocative in that, but I'm serious. If race
was the only issue that we're dealing with. Everybody would
be either rich white or poor white. You would have

(20:27):
you would have all black blacks who were poor or
all blacks who were killing it. And that's it. They're
only black ghettos in America after American ghettos in America,
because they messed with our head. They messed with our head,
and they and they destroyed our self esteem and then
didn't give us the financial literacy. There was a bank
called the Freedman's Bank, created by Abraham Lincoln after the
after the Civil War. And I'm the only American citizen

(20:48):
ever to call the renaming of a building on the
White House campus. It's called the Freeman's Bank building. I
got Secretary lou under Obama to rename the building after
the former slaves and put their money in this bank.
And so, yeah, forty acres in January eightiest five Mule
February eightiesty five bank at ageenescty five March, and then
April was assassinated. So and Frederick Dunlans ran that bank.

(21:11):
So my point is, it's not like we got the
memo on free enterprise, capitalism, economics, ownership and screwed it up.
We never got the memo, and so we want to
get that bag. We want to get that cash. We're
trying to make a living, not build a life. So
we've never used capitalism in free enterprise to set ourselves free. Ever.
So somebody's gonna listen to this and go, oh, he
don't know about uh Tosa, Oklahoma. That's one four block

(21:36):
square block, four square blocks area. If you want to
be generous, you say it was a twelve square block area,
or you want to be really generous, say it was
a region within a city in a country that has
literally twenty thousand cities, right, And so it wasn't like
capitalism was everywhere and we got jammed up. It was

(21:57):
working that one place. They of course came and burned
it down. We rebuilt it. People don't know that story.
We rebuilt it. And it was actually the sixties and
integration that also caused Black Wall Street to ultimately disintegrate.
But capitalism was working. We have not used a system
to our benefit. That's what my mission.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
By the way, it wasn't just you know, Wall Street,
it was other As you point it out, there were
other pockets in America where that happened. Like in Detroit
where I'm from, it was it was black body, right, Yeah,
it was always these pockets. And every time we built
it and tried to maintain the self sufficiency, every time
we pulled ourselves up from those symbolic bootstraps that often
get thrown at our face.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Uh, the white people burned into the ground.

Speaker 5 (22:38):
And so yeah, nothing down there. You and I sit there, rich,
both of you and me. Real talk. We're not We're
not black, We're green. There's no there's no plan on
my I don't know, man. Sometimes forty acres in a
sprinter van. Right now, I'm in I'm in north stand.
I'm looking at my forty acres.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (23:00):
I got a bunch of broke gass people. Can I
say it? Broke ass on it? I got a bunch
of broke folks around me. Don't look like me.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
You can say broke gass. It's okay. We can on
this podcast.

Speaker 5 (23:08):
And I'm doing I'm me and my family doing just fine,
sitting on our forty eight ars that I bought with
legal money. By the way, I did a ten to
thirty one tax free change from a condo. I had
a lot to hear in La and Ball the property
that I sit on now, which was about financial literacy.
That's a whole maybe we'll get into that in a minute.
But I turned I turned a two hudred thousand dollars

(23:30):
purchase into a seven hundred thousand dollar property is now
turned into a four million dollar property using financial literacy.
And the Klan wasn't here telling me I couldn't buy it.
No one showed up with pitchforks, No one is. No
one's trying to undermine me. You can't because I'm smarter
than the folks trying to undermine me in this topic.
I was homeless at locked here in airport. Well you
know where that is. I was homeless. I grew up

(23:51):
in Comfin, California, in South central LA. I can tell
you the address. And now I'm the one percent. So
what I know is this works. I know it works
for don people. I just talked to Roland Martin answers,
and its working for him. It's working for Steven A. Smith,
is working for you know, we got a whole listen,
not just not just actors and entertainers and athletes. Although

(24:11):
we can talk about that, it's working for anybody who applies.
I have four million clients at Operation Million. We've deployed
four and a half billion dollars an operate operation over
in the last twenty years of our thirty two year history.
And those loans are paying. And when you get your
credit score up to seven hundred or seven to fifty
through Operation Hope, the bank doesn't turn you. Tell you note,

(24:33):
they're not racist at Capitalist. They're trying to get every
loan that pays they can at midnight. When you hit
that little button apply for your loan today, AI, so
will set us all free at midnight? That computer doesn't
say are you black? Are you female? It says do
you meet the ratios? And what's your credit score? The
answer is yes, you get a loan approval at midnight.

(24:53):
So I'm not so. Yes, racism is real. Jim Crow
is real. My second great grandfather was a slave and
born in an Aberdeen, Mississippi, and fought in a Union army.
My second great grandmother was a slave in Mississippi. I'm
not talking about some I'm not somebody with a silver
spoon in my mouth. My dad was my great dad

(25:16):
was a great grandfather was a sharecropper. My mother, my
mother's mother, owned a shotgun check in East Saint Louis.
But look at me now, because I focused on what
I could control. I can't control how you feel about me.
I can't control racism, and the man not one answer
my self esteem Quincy Jones quote depends on your acceptance
of me. All I did, Jamel, was to find another path.

(25:40):
All I'm saying is racism is like rain. It's either
fall in someplace or is gathering. So you might as
well get out of an umbrella and a color of
your life and start strolling through it because it's not
going to change, so we must. Racism is not going away.
It's as old as the earth. It's modern with my

(26:01):
mankind on earth itself. Why are we surprised? So I
just wake up twice as good, twice as I gotta be,
twice as smart, be twice twice as much integrity, get
worked twice as hard and I and that means that
I'm gonna clock anybody had negotiated with. So there's a
positive side of racism. It makes the hater, makes me better.
And everybody have given this memo to has succeeded. I'm

(26:24):
gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell your audience one thing.
I hope some people are cynical right now saying I
know I'm not feeling what he's saying. Great, listen to this.
What's the lowest credit score group in America? African American?

Speaker 1 (26:35):
I'll say, is it us? Okay?

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Six that means in the back, but okay.

Speaker 5 (26:45):
Well, no, no, Jamel, it's bad because in our neighborhood,
you and I have a credit score of seven fifty
seven eighty. Pooky them our cousins got a credit score
of five hundred and five fifty as a whole bunch
of pooky and thems and our cousins and friends. And
so our high credit score is being drug down by

(27:05):
their low credit score. In the average, it's six twenty.
So the six twenty is actually good news about really
bad news. Right. What's my point? You can't get a
decent carl one in six twenty. You can't get a mortgage,
a prime mortgage to become a homeowner. Six eighty or
seven hundred be overpaid.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
You can't get basically if you do so.

Speaker 5 (27:27):
While I'm saying, and so here's my quote, Bashar Jung
said this to live. He was on that Doctor with
Doctor King was shot to live in a system of
free enterprise, and not to understand the rules of free
enterprise must be the very definition of modern slavery. That's
what I'm saying. The game is.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Shanned, So I'm not I'm not at all saying that
those structural barriers that existed during Wall Street are still
the same now. Like obviously things have changed and progressed.
And you know, certainly we have a numerous examples in
our community of people hustling harder to overcome some of
these structural barriers to do what you said, waking up
twice as good, twice as smart. We know that twice

(28:05):
as rule, all of us that our black got told
that in our homes every day. But the other question
I'm wondering is do you think capitalism is enough to
be dramatic about it, to say, black folks, is capitalism.
Can a more dedicated approach to capitalism liberate Black people?

Speaker 5 (28:26):
No, God can only liberate black people. And we stepped away,
and we're stepping away, in my opinion, we're stepping away quietly,
gently from the one thing that's been our ace as
a whole, which is our spirituality, religions falling away. We
know we used to go where it's coming up. We
went to church every sund Now I see than less
people doing that spirit but really more concerned about spirituality
because we're not human beings having a spiritual experience. We're

(28:49):
spiritual beings having a human experience. And whenever I go
to give speeches, people are surprised when I give hotor
to God or they say how do you do it?
And I point up, people come, oh, thank you for
I don't hear that anymore, thank you for talking about
the man. I have no idea what they're talking about,
Like that's that's part of me. So the world can't

(29:10):
save you. The world's going to be unfair, the world's
going to be cruel, hurt people, hurt people. Look at
what's happened in the election. I mean, the world's not
going to save you. You're gonna have to save you. Now,
what tool can save you? Actually, capitalism can help be
helped to save you in the modern world we live in,

(29:30):
because it's a tool and a system. That and artificial intelligence.
We talked about that in a minute. If you have
financial literacy and AI literacy, you actually can can rise
above your station and maybe define the station. In one
lifetime like you and I have done. And all I'm
saying is we never tried it. We tried government, did

(29:53):
that work? We tried civil rights alone. But by the way,
what we be without civil rights? But alone? Did that work?
I mean we you can go down the list. We're
you know, people, good people, go God, fear and go
to church. Is being a good person alone? Did that work?
Obviously not? So we live in a capitalist democracy. So

(30:14):
let's let's look at our neighborhood. I want you to
get a snapshot in your head of a neighborhood that
you that you care about. I got one in my
head in South Central check casher next to a payday
loan lender, next to a rental owned store, next to
a title lender, next to a liquor store, next to

(30:35):
a pod shot next to a fast food restaurant, and
a church down the street. The church a therapist trying
to make you don't go crazy. But all those businesses
are praying on you. They're pimping you because you have
a five hundred credit store and they know it, and
you're and it is very expensive to be poor. So

(30:58):
here is bad capitalism compressing you the class and not
walking through that neighborhood. The no one would pitchforks to
walking through that neighborhood. You're being pumped every day from
your daily existence. You raise fifteen minutes from that neighborhood,
you mail fifteen minutes. I've mapped every cris cord in
American by Zimpo. I'm not I'm not I'm not being

(31:21):
dramatic here, I'm being specific. Fifteen minutes are away from
the zip code is a seven hundred credit score neighborhood
in every urban community in America where you have nirvana,
it's just you know, two parent households. You know, people
going to church, people going to Whole foods, you know
sat sit down restaurants. Police officers are respectful to you.

(31:44):
These are black neighborhoods too, by the way, because the
credit score has raised to a point where the economy
is thriving and you're You've gone from a surviving mindset
to a thriving mindset. I've told mayor's of Mironment Good,
the best selling book financial Literacy for all number one
in the country the last eight months. I told mayors

(32:05):
on my tour, just get your credit score up one
hundred point in your neighborhood. You want to see a transformation.
You want to see you want to see crime go
go down and disappear. You want to see two period
of households bliff freight. You want to see homeownership increase.
You want to see your tax base increase. You want
to see your optimism increase. I know it sounds crazy.
Just increase your credit score one hundred points throughout your

(32:25):
neighborhood so it's above seven hundred. It's not about the
credit score, It's about the trending indicators of what's underneath hope,
well being, faith, belief, confidence, trust. What is capitalism? Capitalism
comes from the latter root word copy, toss knowledge in
the head. What is credit comes from the latter root
word credit means credibility. What's banking a trust business? So

(32:47):
none of it is what you see, None of it
is what you think it is. The bank's not racist.
The banks are capitalists. And if you have a five
eighty credit score, they're not making you alone. You think
it's racism. And in reality, they love to make your
loans and make them make to make some profit. But
they're not giving you a loan. And I gonna tell
you why. For fear of being sued. So what, We're
the only nonprofit allowed to operate inside of a bank

(33:09):
branch in US history that got fifteen hundred branches across America.
I'm making loans, Jamel, I've got no I've never, I've never.
I've made a promise that every black person I met,
you do what I said, and if the bank doesn't
fund your loan, I will And in thirty two years,

(33:30):
four point five billion dollars in capital department. I've never
had the fund a loan for anybody who did exactly
what I said. Get your credit scor up, your debt
levels down, your savings up to meet the ratios to
the bank and say yes, we don't understand. The game
is what we don't know. That we don't know. This
killing is what we think we know. And now it's gone.

(33:52):
Now the game has really become capitalism. I mean, this
last election was about money. Andrew Young told me ten
years ago, Bash Andrew Young. John ever lose political power
or civil rights influence, the only we're gonna have lesson
economic power. You cannot get unfocused. We need an economic
infrastructure for Black America. We don't have it. That's what

(34:13):
I'm trying to build. That's what I'm committed to build.
And I just think that financial literacy is a civil
rights issue of this generation. I just tell people, fine,
you don't you're listening to this and you got all
kinds of problems with what I'm saying. That's cool, It's okay.
If you don't like me, I like me. Why don't
you try once you try out? What once you try?
Once you test me? Try? What? What are you arguing about?

(34:34):
With you with your mate? Money? What? What? What? What
are you arguing about? What's domestic abuse about money? Why
are you having a heart attack? Stress? What's stress about money?
Why'd you move to another city? Money? Was a contract,
an opportunity, cost of living? Something? Money? I mean, your

(34:56):
days about money? But what's the one thing we're not
expert at? Email? Money? There's our problem right there in
a capitalist the biggest economy in the world. And yeah,
they may not like you, but now they eat you.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
I love that you whispered that part especially. You gave
me a lot to unpack there.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
But you lucky. We got to pay some bills first
and take a quick break.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
But there is so much more I want to get
to with you, particularly as it relates to athletes and money,
because we're seeing a new age of athletes making a
ton of money, especially college athletes who are becoming millionaires
before they leave a college campus. So I want to
ask you about what their level of financial literacy should
be at this point in their young careers.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
So we're going.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
To get to all that, but first, yes, we're going
to take a quick the Capitalism will be back with
more Capitalism talk with John Hoperiant. So you gave the

(36:04):
listeners right now and viewers because they'll also see the
video version of this, a lot to chew on with
what you said. Now, getting back to the lift as
you know, lift as you go that you've talked about
and the amount of financial power that black people have.
Now we have more, probably than any point we've ever
had in American history. And one place that shows up

(36:25):
is in sports, which is one of the many reasons
I wanted you in this on this podcast. You look
at now athletes are making more money. Black athletes are
making more money than they ever had. But yet, you
know the statistic, I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times,
seventy eight percent of professional athletes when they leave, they

(36:45):
are bankrupt, they are broad or they face with it's
I think three within three years is financial hardship.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Five years is.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
Bankruptcy and divorce. Wow, and divorce. You are absolutely right.
What is opening there? Why do you think this is
despite all the information that we have about our finances,
Why is that still something athletes struggle with?

Speaker 5 (37:12):
So the only part of the only problem with this
conversation we're having is that it is logical, and money
is not logical. Money's emotional. So the urgent crowds out
the important, and low self esteem calls you to focus
on blinging. So if you have low self esteem, and
a lot of our people in our community, if we
talked about that, you're look when we're brought from Africa.

(37:36):
So if you've come from if you come voluntarily as
an immigrant to this country that think about what it
takes to go from Nigeria, Arghana or South Africa or
India voluntarily. You got you know, you heard the story
twenty bucks in your pocket, one plane ticket. You're leaving
everything that's known in your in your country, leaving your friends,
your family. You come here. You arrive at Ellis Island
or lax wherever and you're like, I'm going to live

(37:58):
the American dream. Blah blah blah. You hustle, you go
get a little job. You heard the whole story. That
takes incredible self esteem, incredible confidence to work your way
through that and to live live together with people you
don't know, Earn some money, save some money, buy a house,
all that kind of stuff. But if you're brought from
Africa and we were told we were stupid, we were
told we were you know, it's lazy. Completely, that was ridiculous.

(38:20):
This is an agricultural age, and they brought us from
Africa as we were agricultural geniuses. And this was so
the way you build up an economy in sixteen hundreds
was was to crop. And the crops in the southern
soil were hard to to to well, the soil was
like dead soil. It was it was heat beaten and
and and it was just really hard to bring back

(38:41):
to life. Who's an expert in dead soil, hot environments
Black Africans. So they brought these geniuses of the land.
I'm asking you a question. I'm getting to your point.
They brought us here, big, burly, you know, strong, you know,
but they had to break that self esteem. They had
to break that confidence, They had to break that wheel.
They had to go to sleep anight and they were
out numbered. So they took their wife of the dude

(39:05):
and they abused her in front of him until he
stops trying to fight back. You can't protect. Then they
took the children, they sold them off in a different direction.
You got no hope, brother, there's nothing to fight for.
Just calm down now that what they didn't want is
to break the body. So they needed a body to work.
And we built this country for free, the biggest economy
in the world. We literally we built Wall Street, we

(39:26):
built the White House, we built the Capitol, like literally
built the capitol in Wall Street, like literally Wall Street
was actually originally in Montgomery, Alabama. That's a whole other
podcast for another time. What Wall Street was there because
that's where the money was, because slavery was there. So
they broke our self esteem and they never repaired it right,
and we never healed what we have of these bodies.

(39:49):
What we have is confidence because we're competent. So confidence
comes from competence. If you're competent, you're confident. So we
had enormous confidence in my opinion. Our biggest problem is
I talked to Charlotte Mane about this depression situation. It
was picking on it next month. In my whole global form,
we have low self esteem. If you have low self esteem,

(40:12):
you want the bleed, you want loud, you want to
you want everybody to know what you got. You want
you want to wear your assets on your ass, and
you're not. You're not making rational decisions. You want to
make a bad decision, make an emotional So the one
gift I had was my mother told me she loved
me every day in my life Waneda Smith. She gave

(40:33):
me several gifts, but that one was a big one,
and I didn't realize it the later. That's why I
can say it's okay if you don't like me, I
like me. You know, I really respect me, and learn
to like me. That like me never respect me anyway.
Like my mother told me, that sore is So there's
a difference between being broken being poor, But being broken
is economics. Being poor is disabling frame of mind. So
if you come up from these no, these neighborhoods that

(40:54):
are poor in spirit for whatever reason, I'm not judging.
I'm just saying this is your legacy, and no one
ever repairs your self esteem. But you're confident because you're
an incredible athlete. They're not trying to repair your self esteem.
The actually encouraging you to leave college as soon as possible,
where you might get self esteem. In a sense of
a crew, you need to go in the pros as
soon as you can so everybody can get paid. So

(41:16):
now you've been rushed through the system because you're talented.
You're not repaired the breach. Now you've gone from trying
to figure out how to get twenty dollars to being
presented with twenty million dollars. What's the first thing you're
gonna do first year? You're gonna spend it, all of it.
I don't care what anybody tells you. I don't care

(41:37):
what financial literacy lesson you get. You've been told your
god little g your body seems to prove it. They're
paying you an ungodly amount of money. You're a you're
a gladiator, and you're not gonna listen to anybody. Very few,
some some do, but most of the a Rod Magic Johnson.

(41:59):
They took a differnt approach right U. But they were
also by the way. He had family members who poured
into them in a different way. So that's the thing
that your answer is. Initially, you're just getting off on
the bed the wrong foot, because it's not a capitalist
job to repair your self esteem. The capitalist job is

(42:19):
to use your talents to the benefit of the markets.
Give me one minute to explain what capitalism is in
the trade, because I think this is healthful. Please everybody
listening to this, And I hope somebody still got their
hands folded and they got they got a little bit
of an attitude, cause I'm coming at you hard. I
hope you still don't somebody not feeling it yet. I

(42:41):
want you to understand them. Your capitalism is this is
a table in your room, in your bed, or wherever,
the table in the field. On the one side of
the table is somebody trying to sell you something. The
other time the table is you trying to buy something.
On the right side is the person trying to tell
you something. That person's job is to extract the maximum

(43:05):
amount of money from you while giving you the least
amount of value. That's their job. Your job is to
extract the most amount of value for the least amount
of money. That's your job. Everybody's doing hello, listen to
me now their job In a market transaction and a

(43:31):
good negotiation is where everybody leaves the table slightly annoyed
because you didn't get everything you wanted. All too often
the markets get it all because you're financially illiterate and
you were looking for that short term hit. I want
that bag, and you didn't ask for anything else. You
didn't ask for a financial advisor they were to get

(43:52):
it to you. You didn't ask for a private banker.
They would have given you that. You didn't ask them
to set up a family office for you and your family.
They would have given you that you didn't ask for
your personal assistant to be hired by them, who had
an accountant in a business background, and they'll pay for
it for the first two years. They would have given
you that they had given you anything reasonable to get

(44:13):
you to say yes. What you asked for was some shoes,
a lease car you want, you want a house for
your mama, you'll pay you. You'll pay for that one
you want it. You want to go to a club
where you're gonna pay for some overpriced alcohol that they
sell for you one thousand dollars and really cost them
twenty five dollars you want, I mean, they're gonna give

(44:35):
you what you asked for. Stop asking for different start
asking for different things. I really want to create a
group of counselors. I may call it the counselors of
people like my brother, my boy Reggie Jackson was a
friend of mine who's done very well by the way,
uh A Rod and Bishop td Jakes and all these
people who are friends of mine. I want us to

(44:55):
be the counselors who we don't have any financial interest whatsoever.
You to join us, and we should go talk to
these athletes and lovingly curse them out. Person, I love you,
say the truth. You're about to lose everything, Like knock
it off. We don't want nothing. We're not your agent,
we're not your manager. You can't do nothing for us.
We don't want I'll take a picture with you. I

(45:17):
don't need I don't need it. I don't want anything.
I don't need it. I want you to be successful.
Why would I give you bad advice?

Speaker 2 (45:23):
So along those same lines, I saw a couple of athletes,
uh Russell o'klom being one NFL offensive lineman, Odell Beckham
junior being another. Both of them converted their salaries to bitcoin,
which has surged, as you know, since Donald Trump has
been re elected. What are your thoughts because this has
been you know, some of the conversation in professional sports

(45:44):
about athletes taking part of their salary diverting. Trevor Lawrence
did the same thing. He part of his salary he
converted to bitcoin. What is your perspective on bitcoin as
an investment tool? And let me just say for the
audience listening real quick before you answer, a quarter of
black people on compared to just fifteen percent of whites,
and black people overly invest in bitcoin and crypto. So,

(46:08):
as someone who is obviously a financial guru, what is
your perspective on bitcoin and crypto?

Speaker 5 (46:16):
Don't use your rent money? What billionaire do you know?
And I know a lot of them? You know something too.
What billionaire do you know who said I'm selling a
building in Times Square, pay me in bitcoin. I'm cashing
out on this deal, fund me in bitcoin or cryptocurrency?
Like what? No? Just what billionaire? You know? A real billionaire?

(46:39):
Now not on these social media whatever? Who says that's
my work? Tony wrestlers went of our business partners Tony's
worth ten ten or twelve billion dollars. Tony was speaking
at the Milk and Conference and he was asked about bitcoin. Sorry,
by the way, bitcoin has done well, but it's luck okay,
really what you want underneath that, it's really blockchain technology.

(47:01):
But there have been twenty thousand cryptocurrencies and eighteen thousand
of them went bust. No one talks about that. It's
it's Cryptocurrency is like a gym membership. It's only worth
if you use it and people are hyping it. It's

(47:21):
a I mean, gym membership is valua to you if
you use it and everybody's talking about, Hey, have you
been in that gym? Oh, there's some fine girls over
there too. There's some handsome dudes over there. Oh yeah,
you know, let's go. It's cool place. They have a
little cafe. It's only valuable if you're using it, and
if you're hyping it. If it's not hyped and it's
not used, it's just a place with some equipment in it,
and it's gonna and it's gonna go broke very quickly.

(47:42):
Cryptocurrency has no assets underneath, there's no financial it's it's
it's gambling. It's really speculation. It's not even at least
in Las Vegas, right, there's a set sort of rule
table and you and poker has rules and all this
kind of stuff. Cryptocurrency is just a wild West. Now,
my wife did coin. She got lucky. But you know

(48:03):
what if she didn't get lucky, she's got me. Right. So,
Tony Rerestler's at this conference. He's worth twelve billion dollars,
less than much yet ten twelve eight dollars. Somebody asked
him about bitcoin, I mean cryptocurrency. He raises him. He said, look,
if somebody can tell me how the price goes up,
all the price goes down, I'll buy some. No one

(48:24):
could answer the question because there is no answer to
the question. It's hype and speculation. There is no rational
reason why bitcoin is at ten thousand or seventy thousand.
There's no rational reason. And if you want to know
what people really feel about cryptocurrencies all that stuff, look
at what they cash out to. They cash out to
US currency. Look at what comple of these currencies. The

(48:47):
company's cryptocurrencies have backfilled themselves with Treasury bills in order
to provide some stability, I mean, and why are black
people over indexing on that. It goes back to what
we were talking earlier, surviveaving mindset. When you have when
you have low self esteem and you have a surviving mindset,
and you don't believe in the system and you're angry,

(49:08):
you make an emotional decision. Hell with this system, I'm
going I'm gonna go to create a whole new system.
I'm gonna get rich quick this way. Get chasing that bag.
Short term emotional is going to be a bad decision
generally speaking. I bought from cryptocurrency. I lost my ass.
I did it as an experiment. Man, I couldn't make

(49:31):
the sell it right. I have no idea. I mean,
I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying, you know,
if you can afford to, don't use your rent money,
but put it as part of your portfolio and whatever.
But this is I'd also say to athletes, if you're
listening to this, you should be listening to Jamail Hill
every day. Whatever you want, says, y'all should be listening
to it. If there's athletes and protective perspective athletes listening
to this, I would say this, when you get your

(49:55):
contract and you've worked your whole life to be the
best at what you do. You practice, you know, I
don't know, forty hours, fifty hours, sixty hours a week,
maybe more. You know why you're successful, and you know
why they paying you what they're paying. Why are they
paying you twenty million? What dawned on you to take

(50:15):
four million of the twenty million and to hand it
to you? That to your broke ass cousin Jojo who
can't manage his job and the paycheck at the corner station,
and you go and he's going, he's not your now,
he's not your financial I can't get this out. He's
now your financial planner. Or he's got a restaurant idea
and he's gonna start a restaurant. The worst business is

(50:38):
you can start and everybody wants to do it a restaurant,
in a club, and in a clothing line. Please tell me,
somebody what athlete self starter credit clothing line has worked. Please,
somebody tell me. Tell me what restaurant didn't lasted more
than five years, grand opening, grand clothing. Please please tell

(51:00):
me what club lasted more. These a vanity product. These
are vanity plays. And by the way, Jamel, this is
private equity Also, it's just hood private equity. It's private equity.
You're using private money funding somebody else's equity. You never
getting that money back. When I say never, I mean never. Right. So,

(51:22):
if you want to do crypto, if you want to
hook up pooky them, I mean cool, But have a foundation, literally,
have a foundation of your life. Have a will, have
an assurance policy, have a trust account. You should s
a family office set up. Have a proper professional who
worked forty hours fifty hours a week to become expert
at what he's doing. Is like you're an expert at

(51:43):
what you're doing. You know what people who are smarter
than you in their respective area where, who have good credentials,
and anybody who wants to come hang out with you
at the club at midnight, who wants to be your
CPA as grounds for them to be fired. Immedia, you
want the most boring people in the world. Is your advisor?

Speaker 1 (52:00):
That is that is really no, no, that's premium advice.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
And for the audience, just so they know that what
you said about in bitcoin and crypto, and not that
you need the validation at all because your credentials are
are unquestioned. But here's Warren Buffett talking about crypto and bitcoin.

Speaker 4 (52:22):
If the people in this room owned all of the
farmland in the United States and you offered me a
one percent interest in it, and you said, from one
percent interest in all the farmland in the United States,

(52:45):
pay me Bay our group. Well, let's see. Hey, it's
just bargain price. Twenty five billion dollars. I'll write your
check this afternoon. Twenty five billion. Now, I own one
percent of aparm mine. If you tell me you own

(53:08):
one percent of the apartment houses in the United States
and you offer me a one percent interest, so I'll
have a one percent all the apartment houses in the country.
And you want whatever it may be for it another

(53:32):
twenty five billion or something, I'll write your check.

Speaker 5 (53:36):
It's very simple.

Speaker 4 (53:38):
Now, if you told me you owned all of the
bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me
for twenty five dollars, I wouldn't take it because what
would I do with it. I have to sell it
back to you one way or another. I mean, maybe
I have to same people, but it isn't going to
do anything. The apartments are going to produce rental and

(53:59):
the farm you are going to produce food. And if
I've got all the bitcoin. You know, I'm back where
whatever his name was, who may or may not have
existed was. You know, if I've got it all, he
could create a mystery about it. But everybody knows what
I'm like. I mean, so if I'm trying to get

(54:20):
rid of it, you know, people will say, well, you know,
why should I buy some bitcoin running? I mean, why
don't you call a buffer coin, you know, make your
own or some what.

Speaker 5 (54:30):
Do something.

Speaker 4 (54:31):
But I'm not going to give you anything for it,
and you'd be right incidenttly. But that explains the difference
between productive assets and something that depends on the next
guy paying you more than the last guy got.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
I mean, that's ultimately what it's about. But let me
me slightly redirect the conversation here. Okay, so you were
you're talking about the gamble that is bitcoin in crypto.
Another very interesting fact related to sports is that there
are more people gambling on sports than investing in the
stock market. So what does that say about the financial

(55:09):
literacy of this country.

Speaker 5 (55:11):
Well, you take that and want to happen with the Olympics,
and the Olympics the elections, the presidential elections, and you
put them together and you only come to one conclusion.
It's not just black and brown people that are financially alliterate,
the whole country. I mean, if you're making here's a fact,
the biggest economy in the world, soli superpower in the world,
the nine States of America, just under thirty three dollars

(55:32):
of GDP gross domestic product income of the country. Seventy
percent of thatmail is consumer spending seventy percent seven zero.
You and me paying for car notes, going to restaurants,
tipping somebody in at a hotel, seventy percent consumer spending.
Now we're going to come back to this in a minute.

(55:53):
It's really important because it goes back to demographics of
destiny and why people need to be obsessed with the
conversation we're having right now. If you and seventy percent
of all American seven zero a living paycheck to paycheck,
and if you're making one hundred thousand dollars a year,
fifty percent of those are making paid are living from

(56:15):
paycheck to paycheck. And if you're making a quarter million
dollars a year, a third of those today are living
paycheck to paycheck. You're living in Manhattan and you make
one hundred thousand dollars a year, it feels like thirty
nine thousand. You're living in la you're making one hundred
thousand dollars a year, it feels like fifty thousand. So

(56:37):
this is everybody's issue. This the country is financially illiterate,
and the fact that people are gambling multiple times more
than they're investing should be troubling that everybody. The fact
that we decide to hold our nose in our ears
and elect and pull the election button because we thought

(56:58):
we were because we thought we're going to put is
going to go into our pockets, should concern everybody. I've said,
we live in a capitalist democracy. We just proved it.
You know. I think that back in the day of Jesus,
you know, we had a chance of putting our we
could have put our culture inside of our economy, our

(57:18):
economy inside of our culture. I think we should have
put our economy inside of our culture. But it is
obvious to me we did the obvioence. Now did the opposite.
Now we put our culture inside of our economy, and
dang there everything is for sale. Why is a woman
at a strip club at three in the morning. She's
got three children at home. She wants some three hundred
pound dude throwing money at her with a body odor. No,

(57:41):
she wants money. Why is a woman with an abusive
man money trying to take care of our kids and
she tried to protect them with the roof over their head.
You know, we can go on and on and on.
So why are people gambling because they think everybody thinks
they're going to get rich. And I tell people, first
of all, Las Vegas was created by the mob. Let's

(58:02):
start there. That's real. Talk like that's not that's real.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
There's no question, it is not debatable.

Speaker 5 (58:10):
It was, and it was a couple of buildings in
the middle of the desert. Now, I want everybody to
put an image in their head of Las Vegas today,
so you fly it in there. I go. I go
to Las Vegas for two three days, but I don't
stand weak and I'm not at the crap stable. I
go over two three, I go to a couple of shows,
go to the restaurant. One hundred dollars I'm cheap, I am,

(58:30):
and another one hundred between me and my wife.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
You better, you better winefit, you better win.

Speaker 5 (58:39):
Something with that fifty dollars you got, you're not getting
no more, right, Las Vegas. I'm serious talking now Las
Vegas is getting keeps getting bigger. Why because they're collecting
more than they're paying out. I can't make it more simple.
Why are betting houses expanding? Because it's a business model
that works. They're collecting more than they're paying out. So investment,

(59:01):
you can't control any of that. But you can't. There
are three things that have never gone down in American
history real estate values, stock market, an American GD And
now where do we live? Where do where do our
people live? Before you make it we live in the hood.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Oh well, because we're running a little shorter on time.
But before I get you out of here. As you know,
nil name, image and likeness has created a different universe
for college athletes, and many of them are on these campuses.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
They're billionaires.

Speaker 5 (59:39):
You know.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
I covered college sports for six years and usually you
go into players parking lot or where the players park
outside the arena and or the football stadium.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
They got hoopties. You know, they got like an old cutlass,
maybe a little you know, cavalier. Now they driving lambos.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
They you know, they live in a life and I'm
happy that they're able to finally been ap off the
labor that has built college football into a billion dollar business.
But these athletes that are becoming these instant millionaires while eighteen, nineteen,
twenty years old, what advice would you give to them
as they figure out their financial identity?

Speaker 5 (01:00:17):
So go have some fun, but literally define it. You
have one hundred thousand dollars from a promotional contract. You
got to pay taxes on that, right, get a tax
prot you go to take textes on that. You're going
to need some money to live on. You're going to
invest a piece of money, take twenty grand and decay.
That's my fun money. I'm gonna go blow that. I

(01:00:39):
understand when you get that loan for the lambo or
the truck or whatever, that that's bad debt. Just understand
that bad debt is tied to an asset that depreciates,
and good tech good debt is tied to an asset
that appreciates. We talked about some assets that appreciate. Stocks, bonds,
real estate, business These are things that over time, if
you're smart doing well, will appreciate. So no billionaire became

(01:01:03):
a billionaire, and no city or country became a successful
city or country without good debt. So there's nothing wrong
with debt. You want good debt tied to something that appreciates.
But when you buy that Lambeau, just know this is
just fun money. I'm just giving it away. When you're
ringing in that fancy apartment. Just no, you're opening up
a window and just throwing it out the wind. I
heard it this Wnba, a player who's paying seven thousand

(01:01:23):
dollars a month in Chicago to my age.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
She said that's what she was, and she was and she.

Speaker 5 (01:01:29):
Had never done our budget or one of her fans
had to tell her that she was spending more than
she was making her salary. She and the rest of
the money came from promotional stuff. But she's gonna be
broke if she doesn't solve this. Because your outflow, when
your outflow seed your infold, and you're over when your
outflow sees your inflow in your overhead, over your downfall.
And I would tell these these players, you got to
decide whether you want to be whether you want to

(01:01:51):
be famous? Are you are you want to be dangerous?
You want to go to decide whether you want to
be rich or you want to be wealthy. So rich
is a contract, So please hear me. Rich is a contract.
And you can be rich. You can be ghetto rich,
and you can be temporary rich, and you can be
almost rich. And I used to be rich, okay, But

(01:02:11):
when that's all it is is all a contract is
cash flow. That's all it is. Cash coming to you flow, right,
It's going to flow somewhere, and if you don't do
what we've been talking about for this last forty five minutes,
it's going to flow to people who actually understand how
money becomes well and that won't include you. And when
it stops flowing, and it will either in your college

(01:02:33):
years if you don't make it the pros, or three
to five years into your pros, and we've already talked
about the most pro athletes are bankrupt in three to
five years. As a retirement, you're going to be separated
from your wallet and you're going to have the same
expense level. Please hear me. You've been living a lifestyle
and you want to retain that lifestyle, and when your
cash blow drops below that lifestyle, you're as you're making

(01:02:58):
money your life, You're lifestyle will meet your cash flow.
It's just unfortunately, it is human behavior. Particularly have low
self esteem, are family issues, you know, whatever, identity issues.
You will keep trying to look better. And when your
income stops, and it will before you're thirty, the debts
now will kill you, will literally wash over you. What

(01:03:20):
you need to do is, at every stage of your career,
a little that money is going into investment, and you
build money. You build wealth in your sleep. Please hear me.
You make money during the day, you build wealth in
your sleep. You only build wealth in your sleep. Get
your term life insurance policy for one million dollars. You're

(01:03:41):
a young athlete, you're in perfect health. This will cost
you twenty five dollars a month for one hundred thousand
dollars policy. It'll cost you fifty dollars sup one hundred
dollars a month for a million dollar term life insurance policy.
You don't know how long you're gonna live, You damn
sure know you're gonna die. So when you pass on,
there's a million dollar policy that you put into your

(01:04:01):
trust that goes to your children or your wife or whoever,
and you will create generational wealth even if you lose yours.
So these are some tricks that are easy and not
expensive and won't crip your lifestyle. And I tell you
not to have fun, and I tell you not to
have bling. I'm telling you that this is a game
and you got to figure out where you're going to
play it or be played by it before you go.

(01:04:24):
I want to talk about this Tyson Jake Paul fight
because it's right on everything.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
Okay, yeah, okay, we'll share what's on your mind.

Speaker 5 (01:04:37):
So I love Mike Tyson. I wanted him to win.
I was rooting for him. I mean no disrespect by
this whatsoever. I think the dude is amazing. And he
came up when boxing was I mean, you could be
a boxer. That was it. So I'm not hating on him,
but I'm telling you got played.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
How so, so he was.

Speaker 5 (01:04:58):
Paid twenty million, No one's gonna say that was a
bad painting. Jake Paul got forty million. I'm not finished.
That's the beginning. The producer of the biggest box or
the biggest biggest gate show outside of Las Vegas for

(01:05:21):
boxing in history, in history. The producer was MVP Production,
which Jake Paul owns. Jake Paul got Netflix. I'm pretty
sure Jamel Jake Paul wouldn't got Mike because he knew
he couldn't pull it on his though he's not that popular.
You needed somebody who's iconic like Mike and Jake. Paul

(01:05:45):
Gonn is gonna get all the re broadcast fees from Asia.
That's ten million, from from Europe, another ten million, twenty million,
and a ten million man in Europe is my guest.
He's gonna get Africa. That's be less, but it'll be something.
He's gonna get one of these days. Africa's gonna be everything.
By the way, he's gonna get Latin America by by

(01:06:07):
Tommy finishes. He's gonna have rebroadcast fees approaching one hundred
million dollars. He's got merchandising, he had sponsorship leading up
to the fire. I mean, I break these down on
my podcast that I did the money well and people
can watch the I go through it for forty five minutes.
I go through the whole thing. But Mike got a payday.

(01:06:33):
Jake got well, and and and and Jake even knew
he was even smarter. No, it is not in his
business best interest to try to Mike, not to knock
Mike out because it wouldn't be good for his brand.
The whole audience was with Mike, Why do that when
you've already robbed him?

Speaker 1 (01:06:50):
That's a word.

Speaker 5 (01:06:50):
You already got paid.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
That's a word right there.

Speaker 5 (01:06:52):
He actually, he actually gave Mike respect at the end
of the thing. Everybody Mike Ice and oh Mike, of
course I didn't want to hurt him. Of course, you
want to hurt your payday. That is the reason that
you were even here.

Speaker 6 (01:07:03):
Man.

Speaker 5 (01:07:05):
He and he made it clear at the end this
is about money, and he was in control all of it.
If you listen to the end of the fight, when
Jake's talking, he makes it perfectly clear. And we don't
understand the game. You may, I just I just I
only break this down because it's writing. It's just happened.
It happened. In front of it was two hundred and
eighty million subscribers at Netflix who had never done a

(01:07:28):
promotion for boxing in their history. So who brought him
in a flint by the way, and he gets his
YouTube channel. I forgot this. He's gonna get paid from YouTube.
I mean, you can't make this up. Jake's a businessman
who got into boxing four years ago and got in
the promotion three years ago. Now, if Jake Paul can
do this and he is not that smart, why the

(01:07:50):
hell can we do.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
That's a word? Now?

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
Really, this is the last question. I call it the
messy question of the podcast. Is where the controversy starts
in one incident where you did something that wasn't financially
smart a few years ago. But what would you say
is the dumbest financial decision you've ever made?

Speaker 5 (01:08:10):
Chasing women, chasing cloud, trying to impress people I didn't know,
and money I didn't have, about to talk about stuff
that don't matter in places I couldn't afford, that don't
exist anymore, Like wasting that time I wasted trying to

(01:08:31):
be ghetto famous or get or get all relevant or
four square block famous, or the time I wasted trying
to trying to impress somebody who's broke today, who try
to get a job from me. The time I wasted
that was my biggest because I'm my biggest investment. So

(01:08:51):
I rather you waste my money than my time. I'm
ruthless about my time. You can waste my money. This week,
somebody got me to two different instances. Somebody got me
for a couple of dollars. You'll never it will never
happen again. But I'm not mad about that. I can
make my money. What I can't get back is my time.
So I'm just ruthless about my time. I am very intentional.

(01:09:14):
Is your group is your is your Your world gets bigger,
your circle should get small. Right when I saw you,
you you have a big entourage around you. It was you,
and it was you and your luggage, trying to mine.

Speaker 6 (01:09:25):
Your own minding your own business.

Speaker 5 (01:09:29):
I was by myself, mine and my own business. Right. Uh,
I just cannot stress enough. If you hang around nine
bro people, you're gonna be the tenth Why kids want
to be rap stars, athletes and drug dealers because all
they see is images of success are rap stars which
you cannot replicate, athletes which are going statistically, You're you're

(01:09:53):
not gonna be Michael Jordan. I'm sorry, just that I
don't care. I'm gon challenge you have and you shouldn't
want to be the drug dealer. But the only three
percent of black people are engineers. And that's a guaranteed
hundred thousand dollars paycheck every year for the rest of
your life. I mean, I can go. I can do
this all day and all night. Like we're looking for
love in all the wrong places. And so anybody who's

(01:10:16):
coming up saying, well, I want that girl, I wanted
her to like me, or I want that guy. Look,
there are no ugly billionaires. There are no unattractive multi millionaire.
You're successful. Folks will find you. People will find you.
I've seen them ugly dudes with fine women. Any options

(01:10:37):
also true.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
I don't know if a billionaire that single.

Speaker 5 (01:10:43):
Very few.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
I mean, if they did, they chose to be they
chose to be single, like really chosen.

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
Generally speaking, they always got somebody.

Speaker 5 (01:10:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
Well again, thank you John for joining me. I appreciate
all your financial wisdom. And for those who want to
get more familiar with the type of financial advice and
counsel and just perspective that you have, they should definitely
buy your book. They should listen to your podcast, check
you out on Instagram. There's a number of ways that
they can find you and that they can understand, they

(01:11:16):
can pick up I should say everything that you put down.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
So thank you again.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
One more segment to go, and you guys know what
that means. I got questions to answer up next your
viewer slash listener questions, and I have plenty of answers
coming up next on the final segment of Politics.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
As always, before I close out this episode.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
Of Politics, time for this week's audience question, which comes
from John R. Who was responding to the recent bonus
episode of Politics where I gave my reaction to Vice
President Kamala Harris losing to Donald Trump. You can check
it out on iHeart or wherever you get your podcas cast,
or on my YouTube page. Anyway, here's John Arm's question, Hi,

(01:12:06):
why are you so stupid to believe Kamala was overqualified
to be president? If she was overqualified, she wouldn't have
had to spend over a billion dollars to lose by
a landslide to a campaign that spent a fraction of that.
If she was minimally qualified, she would have won at
least one swing state or won the Democratic nomination years ago.
You make yourself look even more stupid than you already

(01:12:27):
did for supporting this and excuse the language here supporting
this retarded, cackling hyena woman in the first place by
making this argument, take the loss and.

Speaker 1 (01:12:36):
Go find a new career or country to live.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
In well, John arm Usually I don't like to give
much oxygen Toatrollspen. In your case, I got time for one.
Kamala Harris didn't lose in a landslide. Donald Trump won.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
Less than fifty percent of the vote.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
He won the popular vote by the second lowest margin
since nineteen sixty eight. That is not a landslide. And
qualified presidential candidates lose all the time. See Hillary Clinton,
who historians have ranked as the second most qualified.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
Presidential candidate in history to lose.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
But let's stay on topic and look at Vice President
Kamala Harris's accomplishments. Let's see she graduated from Howard University
and the University of California Hastings College of Law. In
nineteen ninety, she joined the Alameda County District Attorney's Office,
where she specialized in prosecuting child sexual assault cases. In
two thousand and four, she was elected District Attorney of

(01:13:29):
San Francisco. Elected in twenty ten, she was elected Attorney
General of California, which has the largest state justice department
in the country. Twenty seventeen, she was sworn in as
Senator of California. Elected in total, Vice President Harris has
had thirty four years in public service. Her opponent has
had thirty four felonies. Kamala Harris has never declared bankruptcy

(01:13:51):
or run a bankrupt business. Donald Trump, he has ran
six businesses that declared bankruptcy, including multiple hotels and casinos.
Do you know how hard it is to bankrup a casino.
Let's compare VP Harris's resume to some other vice presidents
that you may have heard of. Let's start with jd Vance,
who a vice presidential historian said was the least experienced
major party running mate in eighty years. Kamala Harris has

(01:14:13):
had more experience than these vice presidents Dan quayl Al
Gore and Dick Chenman. You know whose resume was similar
to hers in terms of public service experience. He is
someone who became president. His name is Joe Biden. That's
why I use the word overqualified.

Speaker 1 (01:14:29):
But John A, I'll give you credit for hitting every
single lazy trope on the Bengo card in your question.
You called Kamala Harris minimally qualified. Check, you called me
stupid check.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
You told me to take the loss and go find
a new career or country, and you signed your letter
Trump twenty twenty four. Check check check to which I
say this for However, unqualified or excuse me, minimally qualified
that you think Vice President Harris is, or whatever you
think of me, both of us have something great in common.
Whatever it is you think we failed at was something

(01:15:03):
that was never even possible for you.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
Thank you for your question, John R.

Speaker 2 (01:15:08):
Now, if you would like to ask me a question,
you can email your question or send me a video
with your question. But if you send me a video,
make sure it's thirty seconds or less. Send your questions
to Spolitics twenty twenty four at gmail dot com. That's
Politics twenty twenty four at gmail dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
That's SPO l I t I c s.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
Also make sure you follow spolitics pod on Instagram and
on TikTok. A new episode of Politics drops every Thursday
on iHeart Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This
is politics where sports and politics don't just mix, they matter.
Spolitics is a production of iHeart podcast and The Unbothered Network.

(01:15:49):
I'm your host Jamel Hill. Executive producer is Taylor Shakogne.
Lucas Hymen is head of audio and executive producer. Megan
Armstrong is Associate producer. Original music politics provided by Kyle
VISs from wiz FX.