Why Teaching Financial Literacy to Seminarians Makes Sense

Financial literacy skills are a key to economic health, yet too few Americans have even a basic knowledge of how to manage their personal finances. This is especially true among African-Americans, Hispanics, women, millennials, and individuals without a high-school education.

According to a financial capability study by FINRA Investor Education Foundation, only 46% of Americans have emergency funds and only 39% have tackled retirement savings needs. The survey also reflects that African-Americans are more likely to use non-bank borrowing, such as payday lenders and pawn shops, than other ethnic groups. The study states that nearly half of all respondents with a high school education or less could not come up with $2,000 in 30 days in the event of an emergency.

Americans want to live a comfortable life at each stage of their lives, regardless of race, gender, age, or education level. But whether we are young, middle aged or seniors, we must learn financial knowledge and tools for economic success. A lack of financial understanding can be a serious roadblock to a healthy financial life and has a negative impact on our economy and our citizens, including those who are most vulnerable.

Americans often wait until it is too late or when a financial crisis occurs before they seek help for financial problems. This is especially true in underserved populations, who have limited access to financial education training and resources.

But there is good news. Higher education institutions committed to teaching financial literacy are making tremendous difference by including such education at the undergraduate and post-graduate education levels.

This fall I am teaching financial literacy to divinity students, pastors and ministers at the Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, D.C. The class is structured to increase the financial and stewardship knowledge of the participants by teaching them practical money management concepts and skills. The program is designed to train religious leaders who will be able not only to use their own financial resources wisely, but also to teach financial literacy in their communities and places of worship. They will also be better informed to make leadership decisions regarding the facilities and finances of their congregations.

Enhancing the financial literacy of religious leaders and instructing them with the “Each One, Teach One” curriculum training model to implement in their own faith communities is a powerful tool to reach African Americans and others who would not otherwise have access to this knowledge. This education model also has the strong potential to impact thousands of individuals in African-American communities and elsewhere.

Imagine if financial literacy courses were a mandatory requirement at all divinity schools across the nation, and if churches and places of worship made a promise to host financial literacy trainings for their communities each year.

In nearly 20 years of running an education nonprofit organization dedicated to financial education, I have discovered that people want to learn personal money management concepts and their applications. Financial knowledge and skills of these kind help individuals make smart decisions so that are able to maximize financial resources and achieve their personal and financial goals.

The financial topics that I teach at Howard University, which focus on practical issues relevant to faith-based groups, include:

•Personal Financial Planning for Ministers and Pastors
•Credit and Debt Management
•Maximizing Financial Blessings through Investing

Thus far, the feedback from divinity students who have taken the “Personal Financial Planning for Ministers and Pastors” course has been positive and participants are eager to share what they have learned with their congregations.

Innovative and comprehensive programs to teach divinity students financial literacy, so they can in turn instruct their church members about useful financial concepts that can be applied in everyday life, can be a real lifeline for African America communities and other groups.

I urge other divinity and theology schools to expand their offerings to include financial literacy instructions in their curriculum and offer subject specific seminars and workshops to enable ministers and pastors to empower their congregations to become fiscally healthy. This can also play a key role in the financial sustainability of the churches they serve. We don’t have a moment to lose if our goal is growing healthy and robust communities and providing tools for all our citizens to have a chance to improve their financial well being.

The 9th Annual Financial Literacy Leadership Conference will be held on October 17-18, 2016 at the Omni Atlanta Hotel at CNN Center. Click here for more information and to register.

Access Your Potential is a new blog series focused on exploring the importance of developing technology skills and financial acumen in minority communities. Join the conversation by emailing PurposePlusProfit@huffingtonpost.com or by tweeting with #AccessYourPotential.

Trump Needs To Stop Pretending He's King Midas

If there’s one thing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump isn’t, it’s understated.

Bloomberg journalists Tim O’Brien and Joe Weisenthal decided to hone in on one of the things Trump is particularly emphatic about: Gold.

The video published Thursday shows us how Trump’s hotels and casinos have always had a gaudy, Goldfinger-esque quality to them.

How Trump uses gold accents in nearly everything regarding his campaign.

They even posture that perhaps the Don only loves gold because of its approximation to power. 

Whatever the reason for his obsession, someone needs to tell Trump that he’s not King Midas, the mythical ruler known for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold. Despite his hair being the shade of wispy gold.

Watch Bloomberg’s whole breakdown of Trump’s love of gold here:

We can assure you, Don, you touching the American government is definitely not turning it into gold.

For more on the video, head on over to Bloomberg.

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims ― 1.6 billion members of an entire religion ― from entering the U.S.

Edward 'Tiger Mike' Davis, The World's Meanest Boss, Dead At 85

Think your boss is bad? Odds are, he has nothing on Edward “Tiger Mike” Davis ― the meanest boss in the world. 

Davis was so surly even a quick hello would be out of the question. In a memo, he once wrote:

“Do not speak to me when you see me. If I want to to speak to you, I will do so. I want to save my throat. I don’t want to ruin it by saying hello to all of you sons-of-bitches.”

As owner of the Tiger Oil Company, Davis turned nasty interoffice memos into an art form.

It all began in 1959 when he married “one of the earliest cougars ever,” as his obituary states.

At the age of 28, Davis wed 69-year-old Helen Bonfils. He was a high school dropout and her limo driver until her husband, theater and film director George Somnes, died in 1956. She was the owner of the Denver Post newspaper. 

When the two divorced in 1971, Davis received what the book Here Lies Colorado called “a substantial settlement,” which he used to start his oil exploration business. And that’s where his memos entered the picture; these notes developed almost a cult following years later when they began turning up on the website Letters of Note.

For example, he didn’t like guys with hair below the ears:

Anyone who lets their hair grow below their ears to where I can’t see their ears means they don’t wash. If they don’t wash, they stink, and if they stink, I don’t want the son-of-a-bitch around me.

Davis had a potty mouth, but he made it clear he was the only one allowed to cuss in the office:

There is one thing that differentiates me from my employees. I am a known son-of-a-bitch, and I care to remain that way. I have the privilege of swearing publicly, in front of anyone, or doing anything I want to because I pay the bills. When you work for me, you don’t have that privilege.

On the other hand, Davis was open to new ideas:

If you have a suggestion on how we can improve our methods, your suggestions are more than welcome. The best way to submit a suggestion is to put it in writing, sign your name and send it to me by registered mail ― then you can’t say it got lost. I DON’T WANT ANY EXCUSES. 

“There was no one else like him; there was only one Tiger Mike,” spokesman Marcelo Anevcua told the Las Vegas Sun. “Things had to be done his way all of the time. That’s just the way he was. And he spoke the way he felt.”

His way included no “shabby attire” in the workplace. According to his memos, Davis was also opposed to  “birthday celebrations, birthday cakes, levity or celebration of any kind,” in the office. 

While the infamous memoranda were written in the 1970s, Davis remained active in the oil industry. In 2012, he settled a multimillion dollar lawsuit over a finder’s fee he received for a deal that went sour. And he continued to work as recently as this year.

“He was working until about six months ago — still drilling oil wells, mostly in the Wyoming and Nebraska area,” friend and colleague Kevin Trujillo told the Denver Business Journal.

Davis died earlier this month of complications due to prostate cancer, The New York Times reported. He was 85. 

His obituary in the Las Vegas Review-Journal insisted there were two sides to the man, the one in the memos and another Tiger Mike.

“If he loved you, it was Heaven. If he disliked you, it was Hell,” the obit noted. “If you were powerful and arrogant, he would destroy you. If you were down and out, he would pick you up, dust you off and change your life forever.”

Read more of his memos on the Letters of Note website, or in the book “Letters Of Note: Volume 2,” which will be available Oct. 11. 

(VIDEO) Four Reasons 4C's Neuhauser Is Taking A $26m Investment

COLOGNE -- Last year, 4C Insights of Chicago bought itself a leg up in the fusion of social and TV advertising, by acquiring TV monitoring outfit Teletrax from Civolution, to know what's airing when and where.

Now the online ad targeting outfit is tooling up for further expansion, by taking a $26m series C investment from Kayne Partners along with previous investors.

Amongst 4C's product suit, the company variously helps advertisers target TV audiences using social data and vice versa. So why does it need more money? Speaking with Beet.TV at DMEXCO this month, CEO Lance Neuhauser explains:

1. "We are expanding globally ... more markets."
2. "We have to continue to work to gain more inventory connections."
3. "We need to continue to ingest more data sources."
4. "We're going to continue to build out our data science capabilities."

4C already has inventory arrangements to place ads on the major social networks, but Neuhauser wants to go farther. Data scientists, which are said to have "the sexiest job on the planet", don't come cheap these days, but are in the box seat for transforming business and industry.

That's a capability Neuhauser needs to make sense of how new data streams can help ad targeting. He says: "Social data is the largest set of digital anthropology to mankind ever."

Recently, the company also hired a chief product officer and chief revenue officer.

 

This interview was taped at DMEXCO '16. It is part of a video series of industry leaders. The series is sponsored by Videology. For more Beet.TV coverage of DMEXCO, please visit this page.

You can find this post on Beet.TV.

The Day The Music (Almost) Died

No matter where you live in the U.S. you may be able to hear the collective, thunderous applause emanating from Nashville. Of course, if you are a songwriter or composer, the same applies wherever you may roam: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, and every other square inch across the fruited plain.

I am referring to the August 16th ruling by BMI rate court judge Louis Stanton, striking down the Department of Justice recent mandate, ordering Performance Rights Organizations (BMI, ASCAP) to adopt a 100% licensing model within 12 months.

100% license is, in short, the discontinuance of many decades of mainstream music licensing protocol, thereby stripping the copyright owner(s) (writers and publishers) of licensing their works on a fractional basis.

Why does this matter?

By example, assume that song A has three writers, each contracted with different publishers, for a total of six legal claimants to copyright royalties (fees) associated with that work. The current model allows all six claimants to license their fraction of ownership interest to whatever Performance Rights Organization (BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, etc. which monitor and collect copyright royalties) they choose.

100% licensing essentially divests copyright claimants of control, fractures the system, threatens the creative process, increases exposure to IP loss and results in a huge loss of royalty fees to those who have a legal, rightful claim to them. Think of it as a slow, progressive parasite that kills its host.

This interpretation of longstanding intellectual property law, while not entirely without precedent, albeit very limited in scope, would be an unmitigated disaster for songwriters, composers and other copyrightable creations. Music in all of its genres and varied uses would be adversely impacted by this counter-intuitive position.

According to Stanton’s ruling “The consent decree neither bars fractional licensing nor requires full-work licensing,” which is the exact opposite of what the DOJ argued when it gave ASCAP and BMI one year to employ full-works licensing.”

The only portion of the DOJ ruling that is of actual use and merit, is the rightful pointing of the finger of obligation at Congress, before quickly returning to their very disturbing and ongoing pattern of legislating from an unelected position; creating an entirely new dictate out of whole cloth, and essentially a new form of Copyright infringement. That element alone, should be of equal concern and focus.

I understand you may, to some degree consider this to be a bit of melodrama, but from where I sit, it isn’t far off the mark. In a previous life cycle, I made a living as a musician, both live and studio. Some of my dearest friends are lifelong songwriters and composers, that have decided it simply may not be worth the effort anymore. Of course, they will keep writing for the sheer love of it, but will spend less time doing so, which means decreased volume or supply. Who do you know willing to work for free? I don’t believe it can be considered mailbox money, if it isn’t worth walking to the mailbox to collect it.

Considering these people have written multi-platinum songs that most everyone in the free world are familiar with, I cannot think of a more compelling reason for long overdue, decisive action to protect their, and all intellectual property, past and future, and make it once again worthwhile to rekindle the full potency of creative energies.

Bottom line: a variety of influences have rendered songwriting and music composition significantly less feasible in the classic sense, with increased risks and exposure to loss of intellectual property and/or the revenue associated with same. Assuming you are a music lover/user, that should be of deep, contemplative concern.

It would seem that both Congress and existing laws and regulations in this area of American jurisprudence desperately need to catch up with the times. Imagine a world absent half of your favorite songs. Is ignorance truly bliss, or is it just ignorance?

Meanwhile, the only defense I can find of the DOJ ruling comes from the radio and digital music industries. Wow… there’s a surprise! What next, they hand the keys to the blood bank over to Dracula?

To be clear, Ideashares has no political affiliation. We exist to promote, assist and protect intellectual property and intellectual property holders. On our weekly radio show, we occasionally discuss laws & policies, inclusive of the regulatory environment, that represent a threat or create even more barriers to the maintenance of (or at least attempting) an optimal environment for creation, innovation and entrepreneurialism.

Politics in this context is only relevant in the sense that it is the engine that drives policy. The results and consequences of those policies, good and bad, fall to the entirety of the governing body that created them. From a macro perspective, party affiliation is a smokescreen. Look at the results. Follow the money.

Also accounting for the numerous current issues that exist at the USPTO (United States Patent & Trademark Office), how long can we afford to operate in this dysfunctional, Keystone Cop, intellectual property environment, while our trust level with the rest of the world continues to freefall? Uncertainty equals unreliability, which is not a recognized form of leadership, unless the pursuit is to achieve irrelevance. What we need is new leadership. REAL leadership.

So, after the applause ebbs, we need a thunderous national demand for our esteemed government to set aside their self-serving, political “partisan sizing, and do what they are being way overpaid to do. Although, I would be remiss not to offer a word of caution and reason for pause. After all, we are talking about the same Congress that reversed 235 years of well-functioning patent law, to give us the cryptic cluster foxtrot otherwise known as the America Invents Act of 2011.

Again I say…lead or get out of the way.

Innovate On!

References:

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7511194/bmi-rate-court-judge-rules-against-dept-of-justices-100-percent-licensing

https://musictech.solutions/2016/07/06/cost-recovery-and-the-dojs-100-licensing-scheme/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-16/songwriters-win-royalty-decision-as-judge-rejects-u-s-rules

http://dcantitrustlaw.com/Stanton%20Letter.pdf

Wells Fargo Faces Proposed Class Action Lawsuit Over Bogus Account Scandal

Wells Fargo & Co, embroiled in a scandal over the opening of sham accounts, was sued on Friday by customers who accused the bank of fraud and recklessness for its behavior.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Utah, and seeks class-action status on behalf of hundreds of thousands of customers nationwide.

Wells Fargo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last week, the San Francisco-based lender agreed to pay $190 million to settle regulatory charges that employees opened some 2 million accounts without customers’ knowledge, in order to meet sales targets.

Wells Fargo, the country’s third-largest bank by assets, has said it has fired 5,300 people over the matter and would eliminate sales goals in its retail banking on Jan. 1, 2017.

Federal prosecutors have begun examining Wells Fargo’s practices, and the bank’s Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf is scheduled to testify before Congress next week.

In the complaint, three plaintiffs said customers were hurt by “abusive and fraudulent tactics” used by employees who felt they had to “do whatever it takes,” including selling products they did not need or want, to meet sales quotas.

It was not immediately clear how the three named plaintiffs were specifically harmed by the bank’s alleged wrongdoing.

The case is Mitchell et al v. Wells Fargo Bank NA et al, U.S. District Court, District of Utah, No. 16-00966.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Robert Scoble: Here's Why Virtual Reality Will Change Everything

Robert Scoble has been at the forefront of the technological trendlines in Silicon Valley his entire life. Now he’s dedicating all of his time to virtual and mixed reality. But why?

If you pinch the little Cirque du Soleil artist you can make her bigger and when you click on her she will start performing just for you. Right there in front of you by your desk. At the same time a zombie is coming through the wall while the CNN is on next to your work screen. Sounds like a fantasy come true. Well, it is.

Robert Scoble has seen it. Just like he has seen a lot of other stuff from the frontier of technology for the most part of his life growing up in Silicon Valley. And there has been some crazy things going on around him. Microsoft happened. Apple too. And then Facebook. Silicon Valley has been the center of technological innovation in a lot of industries. It’s been like a science fiction tv-series for the last 20 years with more breakthroughs and disruptions of industries than killings in Game of Thrones.

But you’ve seen nothing yet.

Now it’s time for something even more radical. It’s time for virtual reality and the even more immersive mixed reality as Robert Scoble favors.

“20 years ago one of my friends had a complete set up for VR games. And it worked. Only the computer running it cost a million dollars. Now you can get the same technology the size of a mobile device for just 2000 dollars.”

And that changes everything, says Scoble.

“Now we have low cost, small size and more bandwidth. But most importantly we have social systems. Like Facebook. And that’s why VR, AR and mixed reality will not only stay but change everything,” says Robert Scoble of UploadVR. And that’s when he starts to explain the six technologies that are fundamental to create all these new devices that will mix our reality with artificial experiences.

He’s fast paced. It’s about optics, sensors, high speed, dimension mapping, artificial intelligence as in deep learning. And audio. Audio will be tremendously important in the field of virtual and mixed realities.

It’s not that Robert Scoble is fast paced for the sake of speed. He is after all reclining horizontally in a sofa as we speak at the Trouble offices in Copenhagen. Like a missionary buddha of technology trendlines. But Robert Scoble is a storyteller with a lot of information. Just take a look at his social media appearances on Facebook and Twitter and his Scobleizer blog.

We’ll skip the technological explanation for now and go straight to consequences.

“We’re now in the fourth state of user interface of the personal computer era. The first was character mode as we saw in MS-DOS. The second was the GUI as in Graphical User Interface known from Macintosh and Windows. The third was touch as we know from the iPhone or Android. And here comes the fourth of spatial computing.”

It’s the most intuitive thing there ever was in computer interfaces. There almost is no interface. But to grasp the full potential of it you have to try it for yourself. You can design things in virtual reality and manufacture them in real life with the push of a button.

The article continues under the video.

So it’s three dimensions but this is not like 3D TV where it’s just an effect. This is actually a 3D replication of the world. Think about that. Or let Robert Scoble explain:

“We’re gonna put basketball games on the floor and I’m gonna be able to go on the court with Steven Curry and the Warriors and then I’m gonna stop the game and practice my three point shot right next to him. And I’m gonna hit play and see if he makes the shot the same way I did. He might even turn to me and give me some tips.”

And the thing that will tie all these new ideas together will be the social layer of the internet. If it’s gaming, everything is more fun when you play with someone else. In journalism it feels more real if you bring people virtually to a refugee camp in Syria instead of reading about it. Art will be extreme when you do anything you want. Medicine will change because you can better diagnose concussions. It is already happening.

“Everything about our world is going to change. And this means deep cultural change. The kind of change we saw in the 1960’s when the electric guitar brought us rock’n roll, when the pill brought us the sexual revolution and when the space race brought us to the Moon and gave us the internet.”

It feels promising. But will the feelings be real, virtual or mixed?

Let’s dive in.

...

For daily perspectives, rants, thoughts & ideas you should follow the Trouble people on Facebook. This post originally appeared on Trouble Stories.