Google that shit 4 investments we can make to close the wealth gap
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hello hello hello
how you guys doing out there i’m
constance carter
and uh i am a black woman with a phd
a public high school diploma give it up
and i’m super proud about that because a
lot of the things that i’ve been able to
accomplish i’m a ceo of the largest
african-american owned real estate firm
in california
and i’m an investor and i’ve made some
really great i’ve had some really great
accomplishments
but it’s been done primarily because of
god
i mean i wouldn’t be where i am today
without without him
the other thing is i hang out with some
really really smart people like i am not
the smartest tool in the show
i hang out with some really great people
i’m also a fervent learner so i’m
always at somebody’s workshop training
some type of conference but the thing
that i do most
one of the things that’s most that i i
run to very very often
is the power of the internet anybody
ever heard of google university
well that’s where i got my phd i call it
gts does anybody know what gts is
google that so every time i need to
figure out something
anytime that i i’m doing some research
on anything or
i built my business by doing gts
i you know if my if my agent sees
something or my kids need something
first thing i tell them is the gts so
what’s gts y’all
tell me one more time all right so
i’m gonna tell you i’m gonna talk about
a few things as an investor i’m going to
tell you how to invest
but i don’t want you to just take my
word for it i want you to gts
all right so when i was
four years old my mom bought me a baby
alive doll
now this was after months and months of
her me asking her over and over again
it actually was probably weeks it may
have been days but in my four-year-old
mine
it was months and months and months and
i remember just as vividly as it was
yesterday she came home with this
toys r us bag and she said i got
something for you
and i was so excited i seen this bag and
i seen this box peeking through and i
opened
it up and i pulled it out and i was so
excited i pulled out this doll
and i immediately started to cry i’m
almost like well what’s wrong this is
the baby alive dog
maybe a live doll that you wanted i said
this doll is ugly i hate it
and she said you asked for this baby
alive doll
i said this is ugly well that baby alive
doll was black
and the one that i wanted it was white
and somehow in my four-year-old mind i
knew
at that age that somehow black was bad
i knew at that age that somehow this
black doll was inferior to the white dog
and i don’t know how i learned it it
might have been tv i have no idea
but that was further punctuated and
confirmed when i went to elementary
school
when i learned about being black i
learned that i was inferior
i learned the only thing that i learned
about being black was that we were
slaves
and that we were oppressed i learned
nothing more i learned about the
struggle of black people
and it wasn’t until i got out of high
school when i started to
with the power of the internet and i
used google university
and i started to gts tell me what gts is
again
yes and i learned that we were
so much more than that i learned that
there were we had civilizations african
civilizations thousands of years
before slavery i learned that there was
the the richest man
that ever lived was an african name
mansa musa
i learned that after the civil war and
after reconstruction there were towns
that sprawled up
all across the united states all black
towns
that were prosperous and there was one
in particular
it was uh it was uh in tulsa oklahoma
it was so prosperous that it was called
black wall street
now tulsa isn’t that big and this was
only like 32 square blocks or 35 square
blocks
and there were over 600 businesses and
most americans still don’t know about
this town to this day
over 600 businesses they had grocery
stores they had a bus system
they had law offices libraries movie
theaters they even had planes you guys
and it took the dollar a year to
circulate before it actually left the
community
and even in the most close-knit
communities today it takes the dollar
at least like in the in the asian
community it takes a dollar
uh 30 days to circulate before it leaves
a community
in the jewish community it takes the
dollar 20 days to circulate before it
leaves the community
in the white community it takes a dollar
uh 17 days
before it leaves a community but in the
black community today
six hours and so here you have this
community that that was so prosperous
and it was thriving
and it was during a time that it was
most dangerous to be black in america
look at red summer gts that
it’s when the black people were were
lynched at record numbers and
and even in this small town as they did
all across the towns all over the
country
they bombed it and they burned it down
because they were jealous
not only did they do that but they went
in and they stole the people’s things
from their houses
and they would say things like well how
does this end have more than what we
have
and then i read in an article just a few
years ago
uh by gts it said by the year
2053 that median black income
was going to be a zero and not far
after that hispanic income was going to
be a zero as well
and i thought to myself i’m like well
how is it that nearly a hundred years
after
such a prosperous time as black wall
street are we here
where we’re headed to a zero how is that
and i have these i do these lectures all
over the country and i talk to my
friends
and and i ask this very question and
some of the things that i hear
is black people we like to wear our
wealth we like to have gucci belts
nice shoes we like to buy the most
expensive cars
and while that’s true in some cases
that’s not by and large the entire case
there are things that have happened
systemic laws that were put into place
that
that created this this wealth gap
right after black wall street was
destroyed in about 1935
uh the federal government said we are
going to make homeownership a
possibility for
everyone from all walks of life
everyone except people of color
so they came out with this fha home loan
that was supposed to be accessible to
everybody
and but they didn’t allow african
americans hispanics or other people of
color to take part in that
so eighty percent of wealth in this
country is generated through real estate
did you know that
ninety percent of wealth in this country
is passed intergenerationally
and so if we’re not able to take
advantage of these wealth building
opportunities and how are we able to
build wealth
and so these laws that were put into
place it they prevented
us from being able to purchase and if
they did give us loans
they gave us predatory loans and
predatory loans is just
is part of the american fabric you guys
wells fargo
was just sued two years ago for offering
predatory loans
to minorities so it’s very very common
and it hasn’t stopped
but what happened is you had these areas
that they subjected
people of color to it’s called redlining
i don’t know if you know but if you look
at this map here this is the city that i
live in this is the city of stockton
right and in the east part in the south
part
these areas were red line now red
lighting happened all over the country
these areas in particular were redlined
areas
and these these areas in particular were
mostly black and hispanics live
and this redlining has far surpassed
anything that it did back in the in the
third because red lighting was outlawed
in 1968
but it far surpassed that because even
today
these communities don’t have any real
real economies
there’s no big box stores there’s no
major retailers you won’t see a walmart
in sight but what you will see
are some check cashing places some
liquor stores
some payday loans and some churches
but no really no real contribution into
the
the communities so if we don’t have an
opportunity to build wealth well then
how do how are we supposed to close the
wealth gap
well let me share a couple of ways
because i am an investor
and i’m going to show you a few ways at
least four ways
that you could things that you could
invest in so that you can close the
wealth gap because i don’t really
believe
what forbes said i don’t believe that
has to be our story
i believe not only can we close the
wealth gap but we could exceed it
so number one the first investment we
have to start making
is we have to invest in real estate
now i’m super proud that even with the
systemic issues that we’ve had
over 40 of hispanic and black households
are homeowners
even with the predatory loans even with
the fallout of the foreclosure market
over 40 of us are homeowners so that’s
not bad considering there were laws
putting
us in place put in place for that
prevented us from owning homes
but over 75 to 80 percent of our white
counterparts are so we can close the
wealth gap
so again 80 of wealth in this country is
generated through real estate
now i own one of the largest
african-american owned real estate firms
in california
and the reason why we are so successful
is because we’re not just putting people
in homes
we’re not just saying hey we’re just
going to sell you a home we’re going to
sell somebody else at home
we actually sit down with you and help
you develop a wealth plan
what does that mean we’re saying okay
we’re going to put you in a home in the
next three to five years we’re going to
help you to start creating your wealth
portfolio
so not only are we going to put you in a
home we’re going to help you to
start purchasing multi-unit properties
and then possibly apartment buildings
and then we’re going to buy the block so
we do things like
like credit parties where we show people
how to increase their credit
and use it as leverage to start building
wealth
it’s called opm does anybody know what
opm is
other people’s money absolutely right so
we show them how to use opm
so that they can start building wealth
and just yesterday you guys no
no joke one of my clients called me the
other day somebody that i put on a
wealth plan
and she said constance i’m ready to buy
my next home now this was a young single
mother
she had bought her first home a few
years ago and then she had used the
leverage and
equity from that home and bought another
home a multi-unit
and then she used equity and the
leverage from that home and she bought
another home
that was another multi-unit now she’s
ready to buy her fourth
property which is another multi-unit so
now she’s up to eight
units single mother this is the type of
thing that we do for
our people and it’s so important that
we’re utilizing real estate because
again
80 percent of the wealth in this country
is generated through real estate
the second thing that we need to do to
start investing in guys
is we need to start investing in stock
okay another one of the reasons why the
wealth gap is so
wide is because when when people of
color do invest they only invest in real
estate but they’re not
investing in stock they’re scared we are
because we think it’s like gambling
we’re scared to you know put our money
in and of course you know the market
the the stock market does like this the
other day i saw on facebook just
yesterday they were like hey the stock
market is on sale let’s buy buy buy
right so we need to start doing this and
i did a i did a an experiment a few
years ago with my kids these are my kids
up there aren’t they beautiful
so this was a few years ago and i tell
i bought the dr boyce walking stock
program
and i call it the parable the talents
and i told all my kids i said i’m going
to give you a thousand dollars a piece
if you take the stock program and you
start investing in stock
so the only one that did it at all four
of my kids is my oldest son
duders the one with the little circle
and the arrow
so this kid was so excited i gave him a
thousand dollars he opened up ameritrade
account
and he took that thousand dollars and he
made eight thousand dollars
you know how he did that gts
he googled everything now if a 12 year
old child
could utilize google to take a thousand
dollar investment and make eight
thousand dollars
why can’t we adults the information is
out there
just the other day now my son is on
robin hood and he told me
you know because he’s investing in robin
hood so he told me the other day he said
ma
i just made 480 on penny stocks
in one day and so we don’t need a whole
bunch of money to start investing
you can start investing pennies dollars
a couple of you know
50 25 100 just start investing and not
only that
teach your children how to invest
the third thing we need to invest in is
ourselves
we need to be more vigilant about
opening our own businesses
guys sometimes god has played something
on the inside of you
and you’re scared to step out there on
face
right now is the best time that you can
start investing in yourself
listen covet if covert hasn’t taught you
anything it should have taught you that
you cannot
depend on your job it should have told
you that you have to have multiple
revenue streams
42 percent of this economy is made up of
small businesses and it’s made up of
people who are willing to take the risk
to jump out there
and and do that in spite of their fears
now right now is the best time i promise
you in the history of this country in
the history of this world you know why
because we got the internet we can do
whatever we want to do we can be whoever
we want to be
we don’t have to worry about things like
discrimination because i don’t got to be
a black woman i could be anybody i can
sell any product i can do anything that
i want
via the power of the internet you ain’t
got to worry about high startup costs
you could just do it be like nike just
do it and don’t wait for it to be
perfect don’t wait for perfection
there’s a saying that says beta now
better later
perfected as you go and the fourth
investment and my final investment that
we need to start doing
is we have to invest in our children
these areas these red line areas are
still affected like i said today
city of stockton is where i live it was
the epicenter of the foreclosure market
they filed bankruptcy but one of the
biggest things for stock is they have
the lowest literacy rates
in california and these are reflective
of that
these test scores are reflective of the
the lack of investment in these
communities
think about this we spend 32 billion
dollars more
on affluent schools than we do on
impoverished schools
meaning we spend 32 billion dollars more
on white schools
than we do for children of color and the
test scores reflect that
black and brown kids aren’t inherently
dumber white kids aren’t inherently
smarter
they just have access to more resources
now judy talked about those those the
ways that we could we could uh
help these children and the things that
we have to do differently
but we need to have the resources each
state in this country
we spend more money on prisoners than we
do on pupils
imagine if we broke the mold and we
turned that around
and we spent that money on pupils and
not on prisoners
what would it do for the economy it
would take the burden off the prison
systems that’s for sure
i’m from the silicon valley originally
and over 72 percent of the tech
employees
are from other countries and it’s great
that america is just such a great
company that any country that anybody
could come in
and have opportunities and build well
that’s a beautiful thing
but why don’t we do the same thing for
our babies why don’t we invest in them
so that they can have those
opportunities so again listen
four things you could do to start
investing
so that we can close the wealth gap and
i believe it’s possible i don’t i do not
prescribe
to what forbes said about us being at a
zero in the year 2053.
number one invest in real estate
80 percent of wealth is generated in
real estate
two invest in the stock market
today right now i want you to go to your
apps
download acorns download robinhood and
start investing today
three invest in yourself
you are your biggest commodity you are
your biggest investor
and number four invest in our babies
because when we invest in the life of a
child it helps the community
it changes the economy and the whole
country is better because of it
and if there’s anything that i said that
you’re not familiar with i challenge you
all
to gts all right i’ll see you later
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